David Zaslav promised to revive the storied film studio when he took over Warner Bros. Discovery. That was three years ago.
David Zaslav blew into Hollywood in 2022 like a tornado of fresh air, telling anyone who would listen about his rejuvenation plans for Warner Bros.
As a lifelong television executive, he was new to the film business. But the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia had put him in charge of the most storied studio left standing — a troubled Warner Bros. — and the solution to its woes, he said at the time, was relatively straightforward.
Make more movies for exclusive theatrical release. Make a wider variety of movies, not just big-budget spectacles. And then watch multiplexes fill up. “This business could be bigger and stronger than it’s ever been,” Mr. Zaslav said at a 2023 convention of movie theater owners, to jubilant applause.
Yet two years later, the movie business finds itself weaker than it has ever been. Ticket sales are down 40 percent compared with 2019, just before the pandemic sped a consumer shift to streaming, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data.
And one reason (among many) involves Mr. Zaslav’s Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. has delivered only one homegrown hit over the last year. That was “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which was released in September. Since then, the studio has whiffed five times. “Joker: Folie à Deux” died on arrival in October. “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” fizzled in December. “Companion,” a low-budget thriller, came and went in January. “Mickey 17,” an expensive science-fiction adventure, bombed this month.
“The Alto Knights” — a mob drama starring Robert De Niro that Mr. Zaslav personally championed — added to the carnage last weekend. It cost roughly $50 million to make and another $15 million to market, but sold a mere $3.2 million in tickets over its first three days. That made the film a near-complete wipeout; studios and theaters split ticket sales roughly 50-50.