Even if you don’t really pay attention to the comings and goings of movie studios, you might have noticed that Warner Bros. has been going hard recently with their major franchises as of late. This year alone, we’ve seen the inevitable horror movie sequel, the rejuvenation of the ‘Harry Potter’ series thanks to ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’, and two big blockbusters based on characters from DC Comics. (Three if you count ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’.) Clearly, the studio is focused on building up these huge properties and others like them in the coming years and apparently there’s no sign of slowing down, especially when it comes to the DC heroes and villains.
According to The Wrap, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara revealed at the Credit Suisse Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Arizona that the studio plans to double down on their tentpole pictures, which includes the films from J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, LEGO, the DC Universe, and more. That means that we’ll be seeing a whole lot more projects involving characters from these properties down the line. And the executive emphasized that the quality of television is the thing pushing these bigger blockbusters to be more important:
“What is becoming more and more important is really these big franchises. If you look at what’s happening with the quality of the television product, the movies that are breaking through are the big franchises.”
But those massive movies won’t be the only way that WB plans to combat excellent TV. Tsujihara shared that the studio may unveil a direct-to-consumer DC Entertainment streaming service to “capitalize on its rabid fan base”. Apparently, they have been “working on that quite feverishly over the last 12 months”, so it’s very possible that we’ll see the fruits of their labor at some point in 2017. Will this be a one-stop shop for animated and live-action DC shows? Would their library of films be included as well? Or would it be some hybrid of both that somehow also included original programming? The CEO didn’t elaborate much further, so your guess is as good as mine right now.
What do you think about WB’s game plan with their films going forward? Which DC characters do you hope will find the spotlight during this new initiative? And would you subscribe to a DC streaming service? Let us know in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
