Again in June 2019, J.J. Abrams struck an enormous total deal that will hold him within the fold of Warner Bros., his house 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 total offers. That positioned the multi-hyphenate behind “Felicity” and “Misplaced” as not only a content material creator however a mogul whose Dangerous Robotic manufacturing firm would incubate the following era of storytellers, with Abrams and his spouse, Katie McGrath, overseeing the secure. 5 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 Dangerous Robotic failed to succeed in the monetary and output benchmarks that will have triggered the complete $500 million. With much less leverage than it had in 2019, Abrams’ crew has quietly closed a extra modest manufacturing pact with the studio that sources say can even 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. (Dangerous Robotic and Warner Bros. declined remark.)
If the plan was to vogue Abrams right into a cross between Bob Iger and Rembrandt, it didn’t fairly work out. Dangerous Robotic 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 Dangerous Robotic right into a mini studio with autonomy with-in Warners.
“The CEO factor whiffed,” says one high dealmaker. “However this was overall-deal heyday time.”
In 2022, HBO Max put the brakes on Robinson’s “Madame X” sequence, which was based mostly on the im- mortal DC character. Final 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 an extended journey to the display. The FBI drama was given a straight-to-series inexperienced gentle 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 College’s Dodge School of Movie and Media Arts. “That is now a meat-and-potatoes economic system. It was all the time a luxurious enterprise, and now all people is feeling the pinch. You’re trying on the layoffs, the fractur- ing of a few of these large firms, the debt load they’ve taken on. We’re not in a recession, however we’re in a recession economic system.”
Along with his new deal, Abrams is now not on the high of the shrinking ranks of writer-producers with nine-figure offers. Brokers conversant in Holly- wooden’s pecking order say Dick Wolf is king, because of the sheer tonnage of his “Regulation & Order,” “FBI” and “Chicago” franchises throughout NBC and CBS. He’s fol- lowed by Ryan Murphy (Disney, “American Horror Story”), Shonda Rhimes (Netflix, “Bridgerton”), Dan Fogelman (Disney, “Solely Murders within the Construct- ing”), Taylor Sheridan (Paramount, “Yellowstone”) and Greg Berlanti (Warner Bros., “The Flash”). Ber- lanti has two years left on his $120 million pact and sure will face a still-inhospitable local weather when the time comes to barter. Some, like comedy kingpin Chuck Lorre, have extra difficult offers which will eclipse these of the mega-earners on account of back-end compensation phrases for exhibits that carry out properly.
If quantity is essential for the writer-producer, the once-prolific Abrams hit a block at simply the flawed time. On the TV entrance, HBO Max scrapped Dangerous Robotic’s “Constantine” sequence based mostly on the DC property. On the massive display, loads of hype sur- rounded an Abrams-produced Black Superman movie with a script by Ta-Nehisi Coates. That venture is technically nonetheless alive however has seen no ahead motion since early 2023. As an alternative, Warner Bros.-DC has the James Gunn-directed “Superman” reboot hitting theaters on July 11. Abrams did produce the upcoming Anne Hatha- manner ’80s-set “Flowervale Road.” Although the $85 million thriller, which bows on March 13, might embody dinosaurs, it isn’t the form of tentpole WarnerMedia brass had in thoughts again in 2019.
Even when 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 trade, shuttering or stalling productions and decimating the underside line for legacy studios. Greater 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 on the lookout for gristle to trim.
“The concentrate on downsizing at studios means hav- ing one other have a look at these beneficiant expertise offers,” says Jason Squire, professor emeritus at USC Faculty of Cinematic Arts and host of “The Film Enterprise Podcast.” “Warner Bros. Discovery — and different studios too — have a number of strain from stockholders and the board to scale back their debt, and expertise [costs] is one method to do it.”
But when there was one unmistakable signal {that a} new day was dawning, it was that HBO pulled the plug on Abrams’ $200 million-plus sequence “Demi- monde” in 2022 on account of budgetary issues. The Warner Bros. Tv-produced sci-fi drama was then shopped to the deep-pocketed stream- ers. There have been no takers.
Says one veteran producer: “The Dangerous Robotic deal was an enormous coronation of J.J. He principally was a working screenwriter who Hollywood helped [turn] into the following Steven Spielberg. However the query is, what did Warner Bros. get out of that deal?”
