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.
warren and jayapal
obviously want to direct
let them get their own project
Yet Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft DON’T work to reduce customer choice? Of course they do... but they’re playing ball with the Democrats, censoring Republicans, shutting down scientific inquiry, toadying to the Chinese...
And you know why they fear the Democrats more than the Republicans? Because Bush was a closet Democrat, and Trump was the weakest, most pathetic, incompetent, harmless-to-them blowhard that ever stepped foot in DC.
Time for someone who’s competent enough to clean up DC!!!
I thought Batgirl was a tax write off for the company ,LOL
Same with the Jurassic Park franchise. It was amazing seeing realistic dinosaurs on screen when it first came out. After the umpteenth sequel, the wonder has faded
Unfortunately, market for block buster CGI flicks has become saturated and the novelty has worn off. Worse, the scripts have become formulaic, stale and usually politicized in a bad, obnoxious way.
The movies have become vehicles to display the latest in CGI, not tell a compelling story.
The goal seems to be to constantly top the CGI effects of the previous film so the cost of the cutting edge animation production keeps going up and up while the story line quality keeps going down and down.
My viewing time these days seems to be mostly as a captive audience on a long and tedious airline flight. Even then, I rarely seem to be able to watch one of these bombs from start to finish without either fast forwarding or just turning the thing off and putting it out of it's misery. On a lark, I walked into a theater to watch Avatar: The Way of Water and walked out half way through. The CGI was amazing and I really wanted to love it, but the story line was too shallow and over the top on the bad humans exploiting and destroying the noble savage aliens thyme to hold interest. Then again, it did do $2.3B at the box office so what do I know.
On the other had, I really expected to hate Top Gun : Maverick. Figured no way could there be a plausible way pushing 60s Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer could reprise their roles without embarrassing themselves. Could not have been more wrong. Best thing to come out of Hollywood in a long time. And the CGI was so good you could not tell the difference between it and a real aircraft. Gotta be a lesson in there some place.
When you are a Democrat authoritarian, you probably have a compulsion to dabble in Hollywood and decide which movies are made.
Indeed the things democrats put on their agenda.
The should be forced to walk backwards because they always lead with their ass.
They don’t like Zazlav because he’s a numbers guy and not political. Imagine a CEO who actually looks at the quality of the product his company is spewing and the bottom line.
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