Back in June 2019, J.J. Abrams struck a large general deal that might maintain him within the fold of Warner Bros., his dwelling studio since 2006.
The five-year pact, pegged at $500 million on the time, had a singular construction that allowed Abrams to attract from a big pool of cash to signal different writers to general offers. That positioned the multi-hyphenate behind “Felicity” and “Lost” as not only a content material creator however a mogul whose Bad Robot manufacturing firm would incubate the following era of storytellers, with Abrams and his spouse, Katie McGrath, overseeing the steady. Five and a half years later, Warner Bros. doesn’t have a lot to point out for all of the coin that it showered on Abrams, whilst the worth of the deal dropped by half as a result of Bad Robot failed to succeed in the monetary and output benchmarks that might have triggered the total $500 million. With much less leverage than it had in 2019, Abrams’ workforce has quietly closed a extra modest manufacturing pact with the studio that sources say will cowl movie and TV. It’s a sign to brokers and managers round city that the period of the nine-figure writer-producer megadeal has peaked. (Bad Robot and Warner Bros. declined remark.)
If the plan was to trend Abrams right into a cross between Bob Iger and Rembrandt, it didn’t fairly work out. Bad Robot spent about $50 million of Warners’ cash setting satellite tv for pc offers with writer-producers like Angela Robinson, Dustin Thomason, Jessie Nelson and LaToya Morgan that yielded little. The aim was to show Bad Robot right into a mini studio with autonomy inside Warners.
“The CEO factor whiffed,” says one prime dealmaker. “But this was overall-deal heyday time.”
In 2022, HBO Max put the brakes on Robinson’s “Madame X” collection, which was primarily based on the immortal DC character. Last 12 months, the streamer opted to not transfer ahead with Thomason’s “Overlook,” a by-product of Stephen King’s “The Shining.” Nelson’s “Little Voice,” a music-heavy ode to 20-something ennui that was produced by Warner Bros. TV and launched by Apple TV+, lasted one season earlier than being canceled in 2021. And Morgan’s “Duster” has endured a protracted journey to the display. The FBI drama was given a straight-to-series inexperienced mild at HBO Max in 2020 and is lastly set to debut on Max in 2025. Sources say Morgan was paid $10 million-plus for eight episodes.
“The squeeze is on, and the economic system is actually placing a brand new highlight on extravagance,” says Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “This is now a meat-and-potatoes economic system. It was all the time a luxurious enterprise, and now everyone is feeling the pinch. You’re wanting on the layoffs, the fracturing of a few of these massive corporations, the debt load they’ve taken on. We’re not in a recession, however we’re in a recession economic system.”
With his new deal, Abrams is now not on the prime of the shrinking ranks of writer-producers with nine-figure offers. Agents conversant in Hollywood’s pecking order say Dick Wolf is king, due to the sheer tonnage of his “Law & Order,” “FBI” and “Chicago” franchises throughout NBC and CBS. He’s adopted by Ryan Murphy (Disney, “American Horror Story”), Shonda Rhimes (Netflix, “Bridgerton”), Dan Fogelman (Disney, “Only Murders within the Building”), Taylor Sheridan (Paramount, “Yellowstone”) and Greg Berlanti (Warner Bros., “The Flash”). Berlanti has two years left on his $120 million pact and certain will face a still-inhospitable local weather when the time comes to barter. Some, like comedy kingpin Chuck Lorre, have extra sophisticated offers that will eclipse these of the mega-earners resulting from back-end compensation phrases for exhibits that carry out effectively.
If quantity is essential for the writer-producer, the once-prolific Abrams hit a block at simply the fallacious time. On the TV entrance, HBO Max scrapped Bad Robot’s “Constantine” collection primarily based on the DC property. On the massive display, loads of hype surrounded an Abrams-produced Black Superman movie with a script by Ta-Nehisi Coates. That undertaking is technically nonetheless alive however has seen no ahead motion since early 2023. Instead, Warner Bros.-DC has the James Gunn-directed “Superman” reboot hitting theaters on July 11. Abrams did produce the upcoming Nineteen Eighties-set “Flowervale Street” starring Anne Hathaway. Though the $85 million thriller, which bows on March 13, could embrace dinosaurs, it isn’t the form of tentpole WarnerMedia brass had in thoughts again in 2019.
Even if Abrams’ output had fared higher, he would nonetheless be on the mercy of {the marketplace}. COVID and the dual labor strikes of 2023 wreaked havoc on the business, shuttering or stalling productions and decimating the underside line for legacy studios. More than a 12 months after SAG-AFTRA reached an settlement with the studios, manufacturing has but to return to regular. That has despatched CEOs together with Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav in search of gristle to trim.
“The concentrate on downsizing at studios means having one other have a look at these beneficiant expertise offers,” says Jason Squire, professor emeritus at USC School of Cinematic Arts and host of “The Movie Business Podcast.” “Warner Bros. Discovery — and different studios too — have plenty of strain from stockholders and the board to cut back their debt, and expertise [costs] is one approach to do it.”
But if there was one unmistakable signal {that a} new day was dawning, it was that HBO pulled the plug on Abrams’ $200 million-plus collection “Demimonde” in 2022 resulting from budgetary issues. The Warner Bros. Television-produced sci-fi drama was then shopped to the deep-pocketed streamers. There have been no takers.
Says one veteran producer: “The Bad Robot deal was a large coronation of J.J. He mainly was a working screenwriter who Hollywood helped [turn] into the following Steven Spielberg. But the query is, what did Warner Bros. get out of that deal?”
