Warner Bros. Is Taking Big Swings on Filmmakers Everyone Wants, but Will They Hit?
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film starring Leonardo DiCaprio — which, in quintessential PTA fashion, still doesn’t have an official title — packs a budget that’s not just several time higher than anything the 11-time Oscar-nominated director has ever worked with, but far bigger than his films have ever earned at the box office.
Some reports pegged it at $180 million, but an individual with knowledge tells IndieWire it’s actually $130 million. That almost as much as what Anderson’s most successful film to date, “There Will Be Blood,” made globally in 2007 ($76 million), if you factor in inflation ($143 million).
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It’s also way more than the budget of his previous film, 2021’s “Licorice Pizza,” which seemed like a big gamble, even with $40 million. Turns out, it was: that film only grossed $33 million globally. But though Anderson has moved from MGM to Warner Bros., the same film chiefs gave Anderson both of those big budgets: Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy.
Since taking over as film chiefs in 2022 following the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery, De Luca and Abdy, or “Mike and Pam,” have had to build back some good will for the studio. First, it was “Project Popcorn” from the old regime, and then it was the corporate-mandated cancellation of completed films like “Batgirl” and “Coyote vs. Acme.”
One strategy of theirs has been to give brand-name filmmakers a whole lot of trust — and money. That list includes Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Alejandro González I?árritu, Emerald Fennell, Barry Levinson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, J.J. Abrams, Zach Cregger, Paul Greengrass, Sam Esmail, and more.
But with that trust has come added scrutiny, with Bloomberg reporting recently that WBD CEO David Zaslav inquired about De Luca and Abdy’s spending after their first major green light, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” was a spectacular flop.
Despite the narrative that they’re throwing a fortune at auteurs, Mike and Pam’s slate is still a mix of original projects and more traditional IP. This year has “Minecraft,” “Mortal Kombat II,” and a new “Conjuring” film, with an animated “Cat in the Hat” movie in ’26 and new “Matrix,” “Oceans,” “Gremlins,” “Goonies,” and “Lord of the Rings” films all in development. And they have as many other filmmaker-driven titles as other studios, be it Universal with Christopher Nolan, the Daniels, and Jordan Peele or Paramount with Damien Chazelle.
What’s different here is that with Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” just released, the last straggler from the Toby Emmerich era is behind them. For the first time, everything on the horizon is fully their own. Levinson’s “The Alto Knights” on March 21 and Coogler’s “Sinners” next month kick off an ambitious and risky run of pet projects that feel like a make or break moment.
“The thing that we’re all applauding and hoping for, they’re doing. Those two are not just relying on their [franchise sequels] and their IP. They’re walking the walk,” one producer with a film at the studio told IndieWire.
The producer pointed to Best Picture winner Sean Baker’s recent Oscars speech about putting movies into theaters and taking chances on filmmakers, saying that De Luca and Abdy’s approach is “everything that they should be doing” and that “nobody loves movies more than Mike.”
For instance, much has been reported about how Warner Bros. won Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” over a higher bid from Netflix because of her desire to go theatrical. But the producer wonders if the safer IP bets are oddly all pushed to later in 2025. Just because they’re big swings, doesn’t mean they’re the right ones.
“Where I think people are having trouble is that they’re big swings that don’t overtly feel, even though they’re original, they feel less commercial and more about the names and personalities associated with them,” the producer said, whether it’s pairing Coogler with Michael B. Jordan, Anderson with DiCaprio, or Inarritu with Tom Cruise. “It doesn’t seem to the outside world that it’s about the quality of the material and the passion of the material; it’s more about the headline. The other bristle is that it’s costing too much. Yeah, you have these bets, but are you taking the best bets with the shots that you have?”
That sort of thinking is making people take a closer look at some of the titles upcoming on the slate. Coogler’s “Sinners” again pairs him with Jordan, but it’s a genre that the director has never played in before. Anderson’s film remains a mystery, but the word is that it’s a bigger scope and cast than he’s ever tackled. Gyllenhaal is an exciting new voice as a filmmaker, but a “Bride of Frankenstein” movie is its own big departure.
An insider suggests that these aren’t off the wall gambles but are all part of the plan, taking more familiar IP and genres and entrusting filmmakers to give it their own spin. De Luca and Abdy hope to replicate that model with what Drew Goddard is cooking up for “The Matrix” or with a director like Susanne Bier revisiting “Practical Magic” with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.
But the producer posits that some of the cynicism around town must be coming from somewhere, speculating that Warner Bros. Discovery’s board might be wondering why they’re not doing more to mine the IP library the way, for instance, Disney does.
In that sense, the “Joker” sequel was the perfect marriage of gigantic, seemingly fool-proof IP and a new film team giving carte blanche to a filmmaker like Todd Phillips. The budget increased, and so did the ambitions, and it still bombed. In the aftermath, the thinking around town is that at least it wasn’t a cynical cash grab. But it’s also the same call most other executives would’ve made. Mike and Pam did.
“It’s a cool vine to die on if you have to die,” the producer said. “But you can’t do something that’s a total rug pull from what the audience really wants.”
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