At this point I wouldn’t be surprised Yakko, Wakko and Dot hid under Zaslav’s skin (the Animaniacs), who have been screwing it up for a few weeks. At least it would be a logical explanation before this continuous tidal wave of news coming from Warner Bros Discovery, between the secret passes of ‘Batgirl’, the elimination of series and the sale of very powerful projects of its franchises for HBO Max. Now comes another worrying update: Apparently, they have so little money for movie promotion in the remainder of the year that have been forced to move the dates of some of their most important films.
Don’t worry Zaslav.
The truth is that, being objective, the new dates proposed for ‘Aquaman and the lost kingdom’ and ‘Shazam! The fury of the gods’ are better because they avoid direct confrontation with ‘Avatar: sense of water’, but still rumors have spread. The sequel to ‘Shazam!’ can now be seen on March 17, 2023, three months after the original plan… and that of ‘Aquaman’ will go to December 25, 2023! Nine months apart in which not a few say that there will be numerous reshoots.
Keep in mind that this delay is not a small thing. 16 months (16 months!) until the premiere of ‘Aquaman 2’ can hurt the expectations of it (so much waiting for the end makes the hype go away). ‘The Flash’, for its part, is still announced for June 23but with Warner and Ezra’s erratic behavior, who knows if we’ll ever see it.
But not everything is bad news for the company: in addition to announcing the delay of two of its most important films, it has also raised the level of two direct premieres for HBO Max, which will now be seen in theaters: ‘Evil Dead Rise’, which takes the place of ‘The mystery of Salem’s Lot’ on April 21, 2023 (King’s adaptation remains, for the moment, in a drawer) and the remake of ‘House party’, on December 9 of this year.
Thus, apart from ‘House party’, Warner will release this year only two tapes, ‘Don’t worry honey’ and ‘Black Adam’, saving many of the highlights for 2023: Aquaman, Flash, Shazam and Blue Beetle. Is this plan well thought out or is it an elephant in a china shop trying to balance projects that they can no longer turn back? We’ll see, because this soap opera is still far from over…