As a lifelong cinephile who has witnessed the ebb and flow of Hollywood’s landscape, I find myself both intrigued and saddened by the tale of J.J. Abrams and Warner Bros. The once-heralded $500 million deal, intended to catapult Abrams into a creative titan, seems to have fallen short of its lofty ambitions.
In June 2019, J.J. Abrams signed a substantial long-term contract to continue working with Warner Bros., the studio he’s been associated with since 2006.
The initial five-year contract, worth $500 million at its inception, had an unusual design that enabled Abrams to access a substantial fund for recruiting additional writers under overall deals. This setup transformed him from a content creator alone into a mogul, with his Bad Robot production company nurturing upcoming storytellers. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath, were in charge of this talent pool. Fast forward five and a half years, Warner Bros. hasn’t produced much in return for the substantial investment they made on Abrams, despite the deal’s value decreasing by half due to Bad Robot falling short of the financial and output targets that would have activated the full $500 million. With reduced bargaining power compared to 2019, Abrams’ team has discreetly finalized a more moderate production agreement with the studio, sources claim. This move appears to signal to agents and managers in town that the time of the nine-figure writer-producer megadeal is waning. (Bad Robot and Warner Bros. declined to comment.)
It appears the intention was to mold Abrams into a blend of Bob Iger and Rembrandt, but this transformation didn’t succeed as planned. Bad Robot, using approximately $50 million from Warner’s funds, established partnerships with writer-producers such as Angela Robinson, Dustin Thomason, Jessie Nelson, and LaToya Morgan. However, these collaborations resulted in minimal returns. The ultimate objective was to transform Bad Robot into a small studio, retaining autonomy within Warner Bros.
“The CEO thing whiffed,” says one top dealmaker. “But this was overall-deal heyday time.”
In 2022, the production of Robinson’s “Madame X” series based on the immortal DC character was halted by HBO Max. Previously, HBO Max also decided not to proceed with Thomason’s “Overlook”, a spinoff of Stephen King’s “The Shining”. The show “Little Voice”, which had music as its central theme and depicted the malaise of young adults, was produced by Warner Bros. TV and released by Apple TV+ but was canceled after one season in 2021. Morgan’s “Duster”, an FBI drama that has been on a long journey to the screen, initially received a green light for series production at HBO Max in 2020 and is now scheduled to premiere on Max in 2025. Reports suggest that Morgan was compensated with more than $10 million for eight episodes.
Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, notes that times are tightening, and the economic climate is bringing frivolous spending into sharp focus. He describes this as a period where essentials are prioritized over luxury items. Previously, the industry was considered a luxury, but now, everyone is feeling the financial squeeze. This is evident in layoffs, company fragmentation, and the mounting debt many companies have accumulated. Although we’re not technically in a recession, we’re certainly experiencing economic conditions similar to those of a recession,” says Galloway.
Abrams has dropped from the elite group of writer-producers with billion-dollar contracts, as he’s no longer the highest-ranked in Hollywood. According to industry insiders, Dick Wolf reigns supreme due to his massive “Law & Order,” “FBI,” and “Chicago” franchises on NBC and CBS. Following him are Ryan Murphy (Disney, “American Horror Story”), Shonda Rhimes (Netflix, “Bridgerton”), Dan Fogelman (Disney, “Only Murders in the Building”), Taylor Sheridan (Paramount, “Yellowstone”), and Greg Berlanti (Warner Bros., “The Flash”). Berlanti has two years left on his $120 million deal and may encounter a challenging environment when it’s time to renegotiate. Some, like Chuck Lorre, have more intricate deals that could potentially exceed the earnings of the top earners due to profit-sharing terms for successful shows.
For a writer-producer like Abrams, volume has always been significant. However, he encountered an unexpected roadblock at a critical juncture. In the television sphere, HBO Max cancelled the “Constantine” series from Bad Robot, based on the DC property. On the big screen, there was much anticipation for an Abrams-produced Black Superman film with a script by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Unfortunately, this project has been stagnant since early 2023, despite initial buzz. In contrast, Warner Bros.-DC is moving forward with the James Gunn-directed “Superman” reboot, set to release on July 11. Abrams is involved in the upcoming Anne Hathaway film “Flowervale Street,” a $85 million thriller scheduled for March 13. However, this movie may feature dinosaurs, but it’s not the blockbuster-type WarnerMedia executives had envisioned back in 2019.
Regardless of Abrams’ success in sales, he would still be subject to market fluctuations. The COVID-19 pandemic and the double labor strikes of 2023 severely impacted the industry, causing many productions to halt or slow down, and significantly reducing profits for established studios. Even a year after SAG-AFTRA and the studios reached an agreement, production has yet to fully recover. This has forced CEOs such as David Zaslav from Warner Bros. Discovery to consider cost-cutting measures.
Jason Squire, professor emeritus at USC School of Cinematic Arts and host of ‘The Movie Business Podcast,’ points out that with studios concentrating on reducing their size, it’s worth revisiting those lavish talent contracts. Warner Bros. Discovery, along with other studios, face immense pressure from shareholders and boards to decrease their debt, and trimming talent expenses is one effective approach they could take.
However, if there was a clear indication that a new era had begun, it was when HBO cancelled J.J. Abrams’ expensive series “Demi- monde” in 2022 due to financial reasons. This Warner Bros. Television production, a sci-fi drama, was subsequently offered to streaming services with deep pockets. Unfortunately, no one showed interest.
One seasoned producer remarks, “The Bad Robot deal served as a grand anointing for J.J., transforming him from a screenwriter in progress to a potential successor of Steven Spielberg. However, one might wonder, what benefits did Warner Bros. derive from this agreement?
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2024-12-11 08:16