Warner Bros. is particularly known for its gaming and film releases. Financially speaking, the company suffered some setbacks last year. The CEO explains the situation.
How is Warner Bros doing? The company has had little luck with its releases this year. In the gaming sector, titles such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the fighting game MultiVersus appeared. The former is a superhero game with a live service model and disappointed fans, scoring it 3.4 out of 10 on Metacritic. MultiVersus is a financial failure, according to CEO David Zaslav.
In the film category, among other things, the sequel to Joker was released, although the hoped-for hit failed to materialize here either. The film was released in this country on October 4, 2024, and has so far just made back its high budget of around $200 million (as of November 7, 2024, via boxofficemojo.com). In Hollywood, a film has to gross at least twice as much to be considered a success.
So Warner Bros. is in for a tough year. David Zaslav explained in a conference for the third quarter of 2024 why the company is currently having such difficulties.
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The company remains below its potential
What does the CEO say? According to Zaslav, the gaming area in particular “remains below its capabilities” (via theverge.com). You are not consistently successful. This resulted in Warner Bros. Games achieving around 31% less sales between July and September 2024 than in the previous year.
The company’s CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels also told IGN:
We took an additional impairment charge of over $100 million due to underperforming new releases, primarily MultiVersus, this quarter, bringing the total year-to-date impairment charge in our games business to over $300 million, a primary factor in the decline in earnings studios this year.
Gunnar Wiedenfels via ign.com
In 2023, Warner Bros. celebrated a great success with Hogwarts Legacy. According to statista.com, the game sold around 30 million times worldwide – and is not a live service game. Unlike Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. This game was part of an effort to double down on this area of gaming. It is clear that the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was disappointing.
What does Warner Bros. want to do now? The sequel to Hogwarts Legacy is already in development, and a Harry Potter series is also scheduled to appear. The company is also considering licensing its intellectual property to third-party studios.
According to Zaslav, 11 studios work for Warner Bros., but many more would be interested in the licenses. It remains to be seen whether such an upswing can be successful. Nevertheless, Suicide Squad continues, even if there are currently hardly any players online: Suicide Squad is bringing a third season – for just under 300 players on Steam