Warner Bros.’s Coyote Vs. Acme fiasco attracts congressional attention
It’s startling to consider how much WBD’s self-inflicted wound is starting to look like Wile E. Coyote-style comeuppance
Aux News Warner Bros.
It’s not an uncommon sight in any Road Runner cartoon for Wile E. Coyote to become the victim of his own schemes. His flagrant self-owning behavior often sees the relentlessly beleaguered desert predator a casualty of a bomb he set, a tunnel he painted, or a cliff he sawed. Ironically, that’s the kind of situation Mr. Coyote’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, finds itself in.
After last week’s public relations fiasco, during which Warner Bros. Discovery alienated filmmakers, film fans, and industry leaders with its anti-art decision to shelve its completed Looney Tunes movie Coyote Vs. Acme, the company reversed the course. The concession: WBD would allow the filmmakers to shop the movie around, giving another studio the opportunity to release a film featuring one of WB’s most beloved and seminal characters. It’s like if Disney allowed Netflix to do a Mickey Mouse movie, or a studio removed the words “HBO” from a streaming service, or a social media company changed the name Twitter to “X.”
The fallout from Warner’s hunt for some sweet tax write-off money isn’t over yet because Texas Representative Joaquín Castro is asking the Justice Department and the FTC to look into the matter, comparing WBD’s “tactic” to “burning down a building for the insurance money.”
“The WBD tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive,” Castro tweeted. “As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines, they should review this conduct. As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
Per The Hollywood Reporter, this isn’t the first time Castro has gone after WBD with what he calls “anticompetitive practices.” In an April 7th letter signed by Castor and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, which was a follow-up to a 2021 letter of the initial merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, the two senators accused WBD of “hollowing out an iconic American studio” by canceling Batgirl, Scoob! Holiday Haunt, and the HBO series Whistleblower, which WB purchased following an intense bidding war and canceled after the merger.
“The damage to content creators whose projects are canceled in deep development and post-production cannot be overstated,” he wrote. “Such cancellations stain these projects, making them less appealing and marketable to other buyers — consumers will likely never be able to watch shows purchased then canceled by WBD. WBD’s conduct amounts to a de facto ‘catch and kill’ practice, vastly limiting consumer choice.”
The difference between Coyote and the other canceled projects is Coyote is done, in the can, and people have seen and praised it. In the days since the cancelation, members of the film community have begun championing the movie as well as reportedly canceled meetings with Warner Bros. Discovery. Meanwhile, despite its attempts to blow out the lit fuse, Warner Bros. Discovery’s face is covered in ash, making for a grotesquely humorous punchline to a deeply depressing situation.
100 Comments
Oh, you’re fucked now, Zaslav. The giant anvil lobby has deep pockets.
Just wait until the giant anvil lobby joins forces with the tiny umbrella lobby.
Wait, that’s who they’re in talks with now? Did negotiations with the rocket-powered roller skates people break down?
I believe the rocket-powered roller skates are from the ACME corporation. And they are tied up in a big lawsuit of their own that caused this whole mess.It’s about time this ACME corporation was taken to task. Wasn’t it their disappearing/reappearing ink that caused all those issues for Roger Rabbit and Toon Town?
I find the whole Removable Cartoon Hole industry to be insidious.
Removable holes, Giant U shaped magnets, paint that selectively turns stone walls into tunnels. This company is a menace!
Wait a second, I thought that capitalism was supposed to make everything work optimally. Was that … propaganda?
Please deposit 75¢ to receive your answer.
Alternately: please close these seventeen popups and find where in the comments among dozens of autoplay video ads the answer is given.
In my heart this comment has 100 stars.
*Credit only. Purchaser acknowledges that they forfeit both their identity and available credit to WB Discovery.
No, my son. Faith is what makes everything work optimally, and that’s why we need 15% of your income as tithing.
It’s 10%
“But doesn’t ‘tithe’ mean ‘tenth’, as in 10%?”
“BURN THE HERETIC!!”
Inflation, man.
lolol. OK, so let’s break this down. 1) Inflation is at ‘40 year high’ level. 2) Corporate Profits are at a ‘50 year high’ level. Can you do the math? It’s a very simple question.
jesus must be so rich
Replace “capitalism” with “complete lack of regulation” and you’d be more on the right track.
I’m pretty sure those are synonymous these days.
Exactly the point I am making. This situation is not a given. Capitalism and other economic factors must serve the people. This is something that can be done with representative democracy. Distributing needs to people when they need them is immensely complicated. There needs to be a new system in place before ending the old one.
“Capitalism and other economic factors must serve the people. This is something that can be done with representative democracy.” LOL liberals
As if there’s a difference anymore
Exactly my point. Our current situation is not a given and wasn’t always the case. And it can change again. Blaming capitalism generally is like calling cars evil every time someone is in a fatal high speed car crash.
Yeah but it’s easier to just say any criticism of capitalism= you’re a goddamn pinko communist.Meanwhile Europe heavily regulates corporations, governments provide social services, and most citizens are more satisfied with that than we are here. But no, this is America! We singlehandedly saved their asses in two world wars, we’re couldn’t possibly follow their example! They don’t even have guns!
European “mixed” capitalism is still based on exploiting the global south
There have been many decades of reducing critiques of capitalism as unthinkable, especially by those who lived through the fall of things like the Iron Curtain and the existential dread of nuclear annihilation. However, we live in a time where a lot of young people are more open to the nuances of strong support for labor and the strengths of communist ideas. Which is sad because America has also lived through its only relationships with pro-union strength, workers rights, and health regulation in nearly every facet of life. Why do so many discount the benefits of both capitalism and socialism? Europe is proof they are not a mutually exclusive binary but they can be blended. We can learn from the strengths and missteps of Europe to make an effectively American system.It would be tragic to trade a single-minded defense of capitalism with a single-minded obsession with destroying it with no replacement. We can learn from history, we don’t have to just give up.
Yup. “Capitalism” isn’t some perfect natural state, it only exists within a regulatory framework. But for decades rich people and giant corporations have spent a LOT of money convincing people that DEREGULATION is great for everyone and the only “true” capitalism is the version where they get to do whatever the fuck they want.They’ve been so successful at making “rich assholes get everything they want” synonymous with “capitalism” that a whole shit-load of people are ready to ditch capitalism entirely to try something else, and words like “socialism” or “communism” aren’t such dirty words, anymore.
Yep. The country is effectively owned by snake oil salesmen.
that a whole shit-load of people are ready to ditch capitalism entirely to try something else, and words like “socialism” or “communism” aren’t such dirty words, anymore.Good, it’s been a longtime coming (though the latter isn’t true).
You are a communist. You aren’t allowed to comment on this. Track record and all.
They are the same thing, if you were to ask actual capitalists. Every regulation imposed on corporations and capitalists gets destroyed by those selfsame capitalists.
I think you’d find the spectrum of opinion is much more diverse. Most of us lived through 2016-2020 and know there is significant strife around the current manifestation of capitalism in the US. The people who believe in “no regulation” are a minority within the minority of the Republican party. Most people who benefit from capitalism do not believe in a no-regulation system, both in statements and more especially in their actions.
WTF is Congress doing getting involved in this? Besides the tax question, shelving the movie harms no-one.
It works a lot better when it doesn’t allow the most successful capitalists to buy regulation favorable to them. It still has problems then, just different ones.
I really, really wish they would remove the influence of money (specifically people with money using it to influence politicians) from politics. Then maybe add an annual requirement to undergo basic logic and competency tests.
I suspect it was cancelled because Zaslav saw it and thought it was anti-corporate (since Wile E. Coyote is suing Acme).
Force Warner Bros. to release these shelved films!
As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
Zazlav: Why didn’t I think of that? *suddenly produces a jerrycan of gas from behind his desk*
Now that is how you pick a header image.
or a studio removed the words “HBO” from a streaming service, or a social media company changed the name Twitter to “X.” I shake my head every time I read “(formerly twitter)“ or “(formerly HBO)“.And they weren’t even based on some kind of crooked accounting that makes a perverse sort of sense, they were just pure idiocy.
That was the one thing that sort of made sense to me because HBO Max and HBO *are* separate things. IIRC there was even a research firm that claimed that the rollout of HBO Max had hurt the HBO brand. Getting rid of the letters HBO from the streaming service while leaving HBO the premium cable channel alone effectively restores things to the way they were before.
I think the issue with HBO Max hurting the HBO brand was less that adding “Max” tainted the brand, and more that nobody knew the fucking difference between HBO Go and HBO Max and HBO was really vague about what the distinctions were. Originally if you had an HBO subscription, you ALSO had a streaming on-demand subscription with HBO Go. But then HBO Max came around and was…the same thing? But without the main HBO subscription? It was needlessly confusing and HBO was not helpful in clearing up matters.Changing it to Max was pretty dumb because it removes the main identifier AND makes a lot of people recall HBO’s former main competitor (now deceased) Cinemax (often abbreviated to Max). It’s like if Twitter rebranded itself “M-Space”.
Yeah, if you were an HBO subscriber, you had access to HBO Go, which was only TV and movies that were made by or licensed to HBO. HBO Max had everything that HBO Go had plus stuff from Warner Media’s other brands (DC, Adult Swim, TCM, TBS, etc.) and it had HBO Max Originals that weren’t available to HBO Go users. The marketing materials rarely made a distinction between shows that were made for HBO and HBO Max Originals, so if you were an HBO subscriber that refused to upgrade to HBO Max, I imagine things got pretty confusing.Cinemax is owned by HBO (I don’t know if that was always the case or if they bought them) and actually still exists, somehow:https://www.cinemax.com/So I still think shortening the name to just Max makes sense to me. 🤷🏻♂️ Most importantly, HBO proper hasn’t gone anywhere.
Glad it made sense to you, though honestly it sounds like you work for them (I’m sort of kidding, but your take—while technically correct— is hardly the prevalent one). Even if the reasoning is sound, it was a dumb decision because it discounted brand recognition. The HBO model was going to have to change no matter what, but the most bankable part of that model was “HBO” so they really should have jumped through hoops to make sure that portion of it remained intact.
Hence my shrug emoji. I don’t work for Max or WBD, nor do I understand why the name had to change at all, but I follow industry news, and it did get annoying when trying to parse whether a project was being developed for HBO or HBO Max, especially since most people don’t care about the distinction.
Such fond, late night memories of Skinemax…
Cinemax was never HBO’s competitor, they were always sister channels owned by the same company. That’s just 80s propaganda right there!That said, Cinemax does still nominally exist (even though my cable company stripped it from my package a few years ago.)
“And they weren’t even based on some kind of crooked accounting that makes a perverse sort of sense”
How does shutting down a movie in order to get the money back not make sense?
The AV Club (formerly good).
You know what man? That’s fine. I want to see that movie too. It does seem like Congress has things orders of magnitude more important to deal with, but since it’s all y’all can do to even keep the government open these days, may as well put your attention in Wile E. Coyote. You do you brother. (sighs, shakes head and slams bunker hatch closed)
I’ll applaud any time Congress gets off its collective ass to do anything that isn’t blatantly self-serving and/or detrimental to the country as a whole, so let’s just call this one a win.
It’s a major U.S. business. Maybe it’s not making steel or building computers, but it is a billion-dollar industry so when it takes part in prima facie fuckery, it should get at least some scrutiny.
It’s despair Soylent. It doesn’t have to be logical.
Agreed. This is some primo face fuckery.
Their next order of business should be getting us Batgirl back. I really want to see some more Keaton Batman, but refuse to go so far as to watch the shitshow that is The Flash. After that, they can get back to their regular business of slipping cash to their rich friends (for kickbacks) and screwing over the little guy (and maybe doing something to try to keep the lights on).
Unfortunately, over the last generation or two Congress has done a great job convincing the American people that it can’t control anything. We assume anything more ambitious than “keep payroll going” is beyond their jurisdiction.
Keeping the government open is a monthly challenge anymore, it seems.
Thatcher and Reagan and all those other neoliberal cunts from the eighties are a fucking cancer. This current crop of politician are just the offspring from their unholy breeding. They think their lack of doing…anything…is a good thing.
regulating huge mergers and monopolies are kind of a big deal.
That would be great. But this is just a guy saying a thing. Guys and gals say things all the time. If some sort of reasonable, effective action or policy results at some point, you’ll hear no complaint from me.
This complaint has always been dumb.Much like the Ticketmaster stuff when Taylor Swift tickets went on sale, this is Congress taking advantage of a very public situation to advance a larger goal.It’s spelled out in the article. WB is buying up properties and taking up the time of talent (both in front of and behind the camera) then killing the projects. It’s an anti-competition practice they then benefit from via tax loopholes.I applaud them for taking this opportunity to try and close up those loopholes and make it harder for this type of “catch-and-kill” to limit consumer options.
People can work on more than one thing at a time.
Of course. What does that have to do with Congress?
Well perhaps the ‘Congressmen’ is ignorant and/or deliberately ignoring the fact that the FTC and DOJ, as well as the IRS *DO NOT* write the tax laws. They merely *ENFORCE* the existing tax laws. Congress WRITES THE TAX LAWS.
Essentially, one congressman had a staffer write a letter. That’s about the extent of the work that was done. Not exactly gonna slow down the wheels of government.
My point. Nothing is actually happening. At all.
Maybe give it more than 24 fucking hours? I get it, the gubment is slow and inefficient and sucks, but be a *little* reasonable.
More than 24 hours for what? Nothing is happening. I don’t think there’s much reason to expect anything will. I’d love it if I’m wrong! But I really think this particular thing is, oh dear god I’m going to use this phrase, a…nothingburger! Oh jeez, I feel dirty now.
You can’t say “Nothing is happening” in response to a statement someone made *a day ago*. You may well be right that nothing “will” happen. I suspect that’s the case. But it’s cynical to the point of annoying and useless to bitch about a lack of action *the day of* a statement of intent. Give it a week and then bitch all you like.
“Bitch about gvt RE Coyote” calendared on Outlook for next week.
You know what? Fucking awesome. I know there are bigger problems in the world, but this shouldn’t have been one of them in the first place. Fuck Zaslav.
As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.Er… is it? The government doesn’t just hand WBD a bag of cash with a dollar sign on it. I would love it if the government had gotten involved before Warner Bros. had merged with Discovery. These project cancellations are the direct result of that merger. In a perfect world, they would have blocked WB’s acquisition by AT&T.
It’s ironic that spend so much time dealing with the fallout of choices that were obviously bad to begin with. But hey, these giant mergers help the stock market to… Um… Well, eventually they’ll help the stock market.
WB stock is in the toilet my dude.
Yes, that was the joke.
Was it though?
Good. I can’t stand Superman.
+1 fuck that guy and his red underwear and stupid cape.
People rightly mock Republican lawmakers like Ted Cruz, MTG and Lauren Boebert for trying to score easy political points by acting enraged by popular culture stuff like Bud Light, Barbie, etc. Democrats shouldn’t fall into the same trap. I’m annoyed by WBD’s tactics but it’s just entertainment product. It doesn’t rise to the level of Congressional intervention.
I can see if they had some analysis that the marketing cost was too high and would just increase losses, but it is clear that the internet allows so much word of mouth publicity that may be let that happen rather than the giant splash campaigns that can easily double the cost. Return to the days of “Want to see a movie?” and looking at the listings rather than the bombardment of ads and product tie-ins. A fast-food cup or paper box won’t sell me on a movie.
“Scoob! Holiday Haunt” also is in the can. The creators made a choice to finish the project even after it was announced it would be shelved.
Isn’t there that other direct to video Scooby Doo project too that was finished, canned, and leaked?
That was Scooby-Doo and Krypto, Too (as in Superman’s dog Krypto. Scooby-Doo does not invest in the blockchain.) WB actually did release that one in the end, possibly due to the leak.
I suspect part of the reason why WB is attempting to backtrack shelving this project is that they really would rather not hork off James Gunn.
I didn’t think of that. Why would you kill a project from the guy you’ve now put in charge of your (supposed) giant superhero universe?
as much as i think gunna’s alright, he’s a company man now and doesn’t have any power or influence on them. he’s gotta prove himself to them now, not the other way around.
They should be able to cancel their own release and write off the costs for tax breaks, but then ownership of the finished content should automatically revert to the production company. Let the creators bet on themselves. If what themymade is truely terrible, it won’t go anywhere.
It’s clearly not “anticompetitive” or an insurance scam or a “de facto catch and kill practice”. These motions are a joke, but people hate WBD, so a politician can get some free positive press coverage out of it.
I loved the metaphor of “burning down the building to collect the insurance money”. While it is not entirely accurate it certainly has the same feel. I would suggest it is also analogous to a late term abortion but that would be inappropriate.
Go for it. I mostly trust that what Joaquín Castro and his brother Julián do in the political sphere isn’t self-serving.
But for the fact that any investigation into a highly profitable industry will reveal all manner of shockingly immoral, unethical, and maybe-even-still-illegal behavior, this is idiotic.Pretty big “but for,” but, well, you know… it’s what the world is built on.This is obviously just a low-rent political squawk — doesn’t even deserve the term “stunt” — because there’s no underlying ideological motivation, and absolutely no chance of meaningful follow-through, even if somehow some resources and attention were diverted to it in the first instance.
I just don’t know how WBD is so bad at PR. Zazlav is a charisma vacuum who is incapable of saying the right thing. They take properties involving beloved characters and well liked actors and toss them at the last minute pissing people off. Will Universal even want to buy them at this rate?
At least Universal cares about the properties they own. How else can you explain the last two Jurassic Park movies or the Fast & Furious franchise.
the film industry has always been known for its shady book-keeping—-maybe more than any other industry, and no one seems to give a shit except the handful of people that get screwed in those deals. Why is this all that different?
It’s not necessarily different. We’re just more aware of it as a culture now and as the summer of strikes has proven there’s more of a will to deal with it.
is Joaquin going to go after Disney too for all the shows they axed (Willow) for tax dollars??????
The tax break thing is stupid, but other than that a studio shelving a finished movie is a pretty common thing. How many times have their been stories about a movie gets finished and never comes out and then a few years later one of the stars gets really famous and the studio then decides they can make money off of it Also Wile E. Coyote getting hurt by his own schemes is more than just “not uncommon”. It is literally the only way he is allowed to get hurt according the rules that Chuck Jones wrote for the Road Runner cartoons.
Well Mr. Congressman, perhaps if the House and Senate QUIT
WRITING THE TAX LAWS TO ALLOW THIS BEHAVIOR, you might have a
point. That *IS* part of your job is it not? The FTC, DOJ, etc DO
NOT write the tax laws. They are merely expected to ENFORCE THE
LAW.
So Mr. Congressman are you prepared to buck the system and
actually STAND UP for the little people and write tax laws that
benefit the poor and the middle class instead of the rich and
corporations?
I wonder how this translates to other non-competitive issues, for instance game studios acquiring titles/talent only to let them wither on the vine, or companies acquiring upstarts with the intention of essentially burying/shuttering them. All of these scenarios feel similar to what’s being alleged here, which makes it feel a lot less trivial.