Yahoo Finance Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) to Stream Black Adam on HBO Max
Warner Bros. Discovery WBD announced that it will be streaming Black Adam on HBO Max from Dec 16 after it faced disappointment at the box office.
The movie, starring Dwayne Johnson, hit the theatres on Oct 21 and got off to a mild start with $67 million in the first week, which declined 59% in the following week and kept declining steadily further.
The film has grossed $388 million at the global box office to date and it is estimated that the film could cause Warner Bros to suffer a loss of about $100 million.
This major drop-off could be due to its one big competitor, Walt Disney’s DIS Marvel Entertainment, which released Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on Nov 11, thus stealing the audience for Warner Bros. Discovery. Black Panther has recorded total domestic box office sales of $409.8 million so far per Forbes, which speaks of Black Adam’s significant failure against it.
This lack of traction at the box office makes the performance of Black Adam on HBO Max highly skeptical as well.
What Lies Ahead for Warner Bros. Discovery?
Warner Bros. Discovery has been finding itself in a thick soup lately. Along with losses that it is facing on its high-budget movies, the company is in high debt ever since the merger of Warner Media and Discovery. The long-term debt for third-quarter fiscal 2022 stood at $48.612 billion, a 236.74% increase year over year.
What’s further adding a nail to the coffin are the macroeconomic challenges like high inflation that is causing people to cut down on entertainment, the decline of linear television and a slowdown in advertising.
The shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company declined 52.9% year-to-date compared with the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector, which fell by 33.8%.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
However, Warner Bros. Discovery has expressed concern over this and has been making amendments to cut down its costs and expenses. It has laid off several executives to reorganize its managing structure to better understand its combined business.
It is also restructuring its streaming services as it plans to merge Warner Bros’ HBO Max and Discovery’s Discovery Plus under the name Max.
Warner Bros has cut back its spending on HBO Max original and has also canceled projects like the new Batgirl movie, Wonder Woman 3 and Man of Steel 2. These cancellations seem like it is eyeing at shifting focus away from shared-universe films towards its commercially successful stand-alone films as projects like The Batman universe and Joker: Folie a Deux are moving forward.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Price and Consensus
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Quote
HBO Max has once again been made available on Amazon’s AMZN Prime Video after a year-long suspension, which further extends Warner Bros’ customer reach, thereby boosting its revenues.
Besides this, the company has released its slate of films for next year that includes The Flash, Shazam, Doom 2, Aquaman, Wonka, Blue Beetle, DC's first superhero movie starring a Latino character and more.
Robin Thede's Emmy-winning HBO comedy series A Black Lady Sketch Show has also begun production on its fourth season and the award-winning cast of Succession will be returning next spring for its fourth season.
This strong upcoming slate builds a projection of $12 billion in adjusted EBITDA for 2023. The company aims to reach $1 billion in earnings in the streaming division by 2025.
Warner Bros. Discovery to Face Competition
As media and entertainment dynamics evolve, people are shifting their preferences to streaming platforms whose current leader is Neftlix NFLX. This company poses stiff competition to Warner Bros. Discovery.
The lineup on Netflix looks exciting as it includes Emily in Paris season three, Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical and many more releasing in December. Moreover, it is also launching its ad-tier subscription very soon, which is expected to bring in more viewers.
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