Posted on 04/18/2023 6:40:47 AM PDT by Red Badger
The lawmakers said Batgirl was axed "reportedly to allow WBD to claim a tax break."
Four Democratic legislators, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department to investigate Warner Bros Discovery for limiting "consumer and worker choice," including the cancellation of Batgirl.
Texas Representative Joaquin Castro and Rhode Island Representative David Cicilline joined Warren and Jayapal in writing the letter, which was addressed to Garland and Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ's antitrust chief, and read that the four "respectfully urge the Justice Department to investigate the state of competition in affected labor and consumer markets" of the Warner Bros and Discovery+ merger as it "appears to have enabled Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) to adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets."
The four wrote that "The company has the incentive and ability to eliminate broad swaths of its workforce, leaving workers with fewer choices for employment and advancement."
Last year, Warner Bros, who owns HBO and other properties such as CNN, merged with Discovery+, and new CEO David Zaslov cut many programs across the newly merged company's landscape, including Batgirl and CNN+. Zaslow also cut or reduced licensed content on services such as HBO Max, including episodes of Sesame Street.
According to the letter, "Following the merger, WBD announced numerous labor-force reductions and product cancellations that would limit consumer and worker choice—cancelling (sic) several titles, including 'Batgirl,' which was deep into post-production, 'Gordita Chronicles,' 'Demimonde,' and 'The Time Traveler’s Wife.'"
The lawmakers went on about Batgirl and noted that the $90 film was nearly done with post-production and was axed "reportedly to allow WBD to claim a tax break."
Deadline reports that Warner Bros Discovery is just one of several entertainment giants to drop shows and staff, as Disney and Netflix have also made recent cuts.
The merger was reviewed at the time by the DOJ and was not challenged, reports Deadline, and it would be "unusual for the Justice Department to essentially reopen a review of a merger so shortly after it has been completed."
The new co-chairman and CEO of DC Studios, Peter Safran, said Batgirl was "not releasable" in February.
An anonymous Hollywood insider told the New York Post that audiences at test screenings received the film so poorly that they shuttered the project for the "sake of the brand's future."
"They think an unspeakable 'Batgirl' is going to be irredeemable," the insider told the Post.
If they can’t define a woman, why are they outraged over the cancellation over Batgirl specifically?
Sounds perfectly legal to me. Dumping an asset OR a liability for tax purposes is legal.
It was a business decision. The movie screenings were not going well, which I can say based on what I’ve read up on it.
There was no way WB could recoupe its losses, no matter how often they showed it on late night tv forever more.
They are prepared to go forward with Flash, with that mentally ill Ezra, so that should tell you what WB thought how Batgirl would perform.
They would have a much better show if the made one about CATWOMAN..................
I recently watched ‘Black Adam’, and will admit....it was one of the worst script pieces I’ve seen in 30 years of DC (even worse than Green Lantern). So this chatter of Batgirl being awful...it probably is the same script people who did the Black Adam crap.
One part of me tends to think that they knew on the first day of filming Batgirl....it was a crappy script/idea. Far as I can tell...it will never be released.
I thought Green Lantern was mostly a good movie.
However, I think they did two things wrong with it that turned a lot of people off.
1. The villain was simply too big for a first movie. Parallax is a universe ending villain. What do you do for an encore after you save the universe? They should have, imo, done something more modest. It’s a powerful ring and it’s a novelty item to Hal Jordan. They should have had him do something stupid that caused a crisis, like an avalanche in a Swiss Alps town while he’s screwing around with the ring. He can then redeem himself by stopping the avalanche and saving the town. Then they could have done something more awesome in the Second movie and have the third arc involve trying to stop Sinestro. For the first movie, have Sinestro face something in a side story that sets the stage for him to become the Yellow Lantern.
2. They also didn’t fund the villain to make it credible. It looked like it was from a late night sci-fi movie that had a couple hundred thousand dollar budget. He was really badly done.
Elizabeth Warren and the Gang want to force feed Batgirl on us?
How is any of this the business of Congress in the first place? A movie company makes a movie and then they decide that they’re not going to release it. They’re going to eat the cost. They are making a business decision on how to run their business and promote their products. How does any of this become the business of the United States Congress?
I’m sure I’m missing something because I’m not an enlightened liberal.
So many DC products, and beyond Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (I’ll admit 1984 was 2-star)...it’s been mostly crap.
I thought that Justice Society would be sprinkled around and possibly rekindle the whole mix of things.
This Flash movie? A lot of anticipation with it.
Let these Dim fools purchase the rights to it, and then put it out there if they believe in it so much. Until then, shut up fools!
strap a penis on he/she and rebrand it as “Identify Batgirl”.
“ noted that the $90 film was nearly done..”
Ninety whole dollars.
L
I think DC was in too much of a hurry with their product. They couldn’t accept that Marvel got lucky and was able to fill a niche without competition, because nobody had tried to create a comic universe before.
I think DC would have had more success if they had been more modest with their goals. Stick with $30 million movies and make $150 million at the box office. There are lots of comic characters that would do very well with a budget of $30-$50 million.
If Merrick Garland had any integrity at all, he would Investigate these 4 clowns to determine what kind and how many threats they made against Warner Bros, them Criminally Charge them with FELONY EXTORTION
Do any of these people even bother to read the Constitution
And understand that their role is NOT to micromanage everything in the country?
What the h*** is Congress going to do- tell them who they can hire as actors? And what movies they can make?
No wonder they canned it......................overbudget...............
To be relaunched as Bat-Hir.
My only question is how many of those rat signatories to the letter shorted WB stock the day before they sent it.
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