OH, BROTHERS!

... And every bad business decision.

My former writing partner wisely observed that studios will do anything they can
to avoid making movies until they have no choice. In celebration of its 100th anniversary, Warner Brothers has put a new twist on that rule: make movies, then never release them.

Warners has decided to shelve a $70-million live action/animated hybrid, Coyote vs Acme, in order to take a tax write-off.  This wasn't a case of a picture being so bad it would stain the reputation of its creators. If that were the case, there wouldn't be so many "Ten Worst Movies of the Year" lists.

Let's hope it's aimed at the Warners
accounting department.

In fact, Coyote vs Acme tested quite well in sneak previews. And the idea itself -- the long-suffering Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Company for all their products that never worked in capturing the Road Runner -- is clever (and based on a New Yorker piece). According to Deadline, "the cash-strapped Warners finds that it’s not worth the cost to release the film theatrically or to sell to other buyers (and there are parties who are interested for their own streaming services)." This same decision led to the shelving of two other Warner movies in the last year, Scoob!: Holiday Haunt and Batgirl.

Not that there isn't precedence for this kind of thing. Around 1926, Josef von Sternberg directed the drama A Woman of the Sea. The producer, Charlie Chaplin, didn't like the finished product and refused to release it. About a decade later, Chaplin, facing a jumbo tax bill, destroyed the negative in front of an IRS agent in order to declare a loss. Maybe I should've pulled a similar stunt with my unproduced screenplays. 

Hah! What do these grade school dropouts know
about moviemaking?

At least Chaplin was a genius moviemaker. Today's studios are run by law school grads who don't know a zoom from a tracking shot. But boy they sure know how to spend money alright! Seventy-million buckaroos for a Wile E. Coyote movie. Another 40-million for a Scooby Doo cartoon. And 90-million for Batgirl. 

Next time you hear about a Warners movie that didn't turn a profit despite grossing a billion dollars, maybe somebody can remind them that they saved $200-million by not releasing those three movies. Then, going forward, all they have to do is make movies, then destroy them. Pure profit!

Memo to whatever geniuses are running Warner Brothers now: maybe you're cash-strapped because you spent forty goddamn million dollars on a Scooby goddamn Doo movie. 

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