Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - Printable Version
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RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - Rdd - 14-11-2023
(13-11-2023, 11:48 PM)James2001 Wrote: Looks like what I said was happening- a lot of high profile creatives were cancelling meetings with Warner Brothers. After all, who wants to spend years of their life working on something to find it shoved in a vault so fat cats can get a tax break?
https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1724148740477358249
I read the director had spent 18 months in the UK away from his family, which is a massive sacrifice to make to find out was all for nothing.
Going to be some amusing karma if the movie ends up making a lot of money for the company that buys it and WB don't see it.
To be fair, it’s not “all for nothing”, he’s still getting his agreed pay cheque for the job, as are all the cast and crew. That doesn’t make it any less disheartening to see your work not released for the public to enjoy, of course.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - i.h - 14-11-2023
(14-11-2023, 09:06 AM)Rdd Wrote: To be fair, it’s not “all for nothing”, he’s still getting his agreed pay cheque for the job, as are all the cast and crew. That doesn’t make it any less disheartening to see your work not released for the public to enjoy, of course.
But it presumably also makes it more difficult to advertise for future work, since you'd be expected to have some sort of portfolio which will be made harder when significant parts of it have effectively been erased. But in terms of pay - if they agreed a proportion of profit or revenue, how does that work when it'll never go on sale or exhibition?
In an ideal world this would mean creatives would simply stop working with WBD until they end the practice, but consolidation is going to make that more difficult.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - James2001 - 14-11-2023
(14-11-2023, 11:57 AM)i.h Wrote: In an ideal world this would mean creatives would simply stop working with WBD until they end the practice, but consolidation is going to make that more difficult.
Though it does seem a lot of people threatened to do just that, which caused this reversal.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - Rdd - 14-11-2023
(14-11-2023, 11:57 AM)i.h Wrote: But it presumably also makes it more difficult to advertise for future work, since you'd be expected to have some sort of portfolio which will be made harder when significant parts of it have effectively been erased. But in terms of pay - if they agreed a proportion of profit or revenue, how does that work when it'll never go on sale or exhibition?Surely there would be a clause dealing with that scenario in the contact - if not, I’d expect legal proceedings would ensue (probably settled by some sort of payment based on an estimate of how much revenue the work might have made if released?)
In an ideal world this would mean creatives would simply stop working with WBD until they end the practice, but consolidation is going to make that more difficult.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - XIII - 14-11-2023
People aren't going to stop working for Warner Bros. That's just hyperbole by people who don't understand Hollywood.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - bkman1990 - 15-11-2023
This tax write-off business from WBD isn't really a very popular move in the eyes of the U.S. Congress. A Democratic congressman from Texas is calling for WBD to undergo an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/coyote-vs-acme-warners-investigation-1235647011/
Congressman Joaquin Castro has called for the investigation after he called the move to place Coyote vs. Acme on the list of WBD's tax write offs "predatory and anti-competitive".
This move could be very significant for WBD; Congressman Castro had continued “As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines (involving mergers of companies) they should review this conduct. As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
Who knew what was going to happen at this point. One would assume that WBD probably knew they were making a huge mistake in the eyes of the competition enforcers in the U.S. and then backtracked on their initial decision to write off this film for a tax write off.
And we still don't even know whether more other projects were going to be added along with Coyote vs. Acme on the tax write off list.
Although; this is the first time that I have read that the Antitrust guidelines from the U.S. Justice Dept and the FTC are going to be going through changes. Are there big changes planned for them or could it be some small changes which would allow WBD to get away with implementing more of their tax write offs in the near future?
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - Keith - 15-11-2023
(15-11-2023, 05:57 AM)bkman1990 Wrote: Who knew what was going to happen at this point. One would assume that WBD probably knew they were making a huge mistake in the eyes of the competition enforcers in the U.S. and then backtracked on their initial decision to write off this film for a tax write off.Arguably if a film or TV production has been completed it shouldn't be allowed to count towards a tax write off, except in extenuating circumstances (e.g. lead actor is charged/convicted). Once the production has been completed in the case of films if they doubt it's success in the cinemas they could release straight to their own streaming site, or alternatively offer it out to rival streaming platforms & TV channels (e.g. Sky Cinema). Similar options are also available with TV series.
And we still don't even know whether more other projects were going to be added along with Coyote vs. Acme on the tax write off list.
Although; this is the first time that I have read that the Antitrust guidelines from the U.S. Justice Dept and the FTC are going to be going through changes. Are there big changes planned for them or could it be some small changes which would allow WBD to get away with implementing more of their tax write offs in the near future?
I suspect though that they might then try to claim that whilst reviewing/previewing they decided that changes where required, which made it no longer complete. They could then do the tax write-off claiming that it wasn't complete (even though it essentially was).
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - thegeek - 15-11-2023
(13-11-2023, 11:48 PM)James2001 Wrote: Looks like what I said was happening- a lot of high profile creatives were cancelling meetings with Warner Brothers. After all, who wants to spend years of their life working on something to find it shoved in a vault so fat cats can get a tax break?
I happened to be in Glasgow a couple of years ago when much of the city centre was shut down for shooting Batgirl. One street was full of various American vehicles, and some buses decked out in a Gotham Transit Authority livery:
https://up.metropol247.co.uk/thegeek/Photo%20Jul%2029.jpg
When I heard about the film being canned, it did make me think about the hundreds of people involved in just those couple of days' filming who you wouldn't even consider part of the film - the buses were presumably hired and driven up from continental Europe, there were scores of traffic marshalls who'd shut off the streets; businesses were compensated for lack of trade or having to shut for the day. What a bloody waste of everyone's time and resources.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - James2001 - 15-11-2023
I wonder if the fact the announcement was literally the day after the actors strike ended helped add to the backlash- the ink's barely dry on the deal and the studios are pulling dirty tricks again.
RE: Warner Bros. Discovery - Company News and Discussion - Brekkie - 16-11-2023
Good point, plus they've had 6 months not making content and still feel they can throw something in the bin.
Also do wonder if they'll be a U-turn and this is all about publicity for the movie which otherwise may have been released unnoticed.