and his leadership team, who have been simultaneously obsessed with finding $3 billion in cost-saving synergies while expanding the number of movies the company produces. That mission also includes a mandate to land the hottest talent to make those projects, a directive that often comes with a steep price tag. Managing these warring impulses will now fall to De Luca and Abdy.
On Wednesday, Zaslav finally clarified this ambition by setting a new world order: De Luca and Abdy will run Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, standing alongside Warner Bros. Animation and DC Films. All labels had previously reported up to Emmerich, who also enjoyed control over a slate of exclusive made-for-streaming features for HBO Max.
“De Luca was the wunderkind at New Line. Now he’s the veteran,” says Stephen Galloway, the dean of the Chapman University film school. “He has to prove he has a strategy for a studio where the feature film business is a shrinking part of the pie. Features are increasingly tentpole oriented, and that’s not what he’s been associated with. He’s moving into the IP and branded universe.”
Galloway adds: “They have to turn around an impression that Zaslav is not feature film and talent friendly.” Of course, all of this will take time. Films take years to develop and produce, which means that De Luca and Abdy’s slate won’t come to fruition until 2024 or 2025. Zaslav is about to find out how much longer it takes to turn things around in the slow-moving movie business.For Emmerich, the writing was on the wall even if the decision to leave was his own.