By In a few short years, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav went from somebody many outside of the U.S. business world had never heard of to someone whose surname is now officially listed as a verb at UrbanDictionary.com.
Zaslav turned out for his company’s third-quarter earnings call today where he praised the upcoming second Donald Trump U.S. Presidency, calling it an “opportunity for consolidation” and claims it will “provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that’s needed”.
A big part of that will be more dealmaking as it’s expected Trump will further push deregulation, freeing up dealmakers and allow for more and more small studios and streamers to be snatched up by corporate giants.
Zaslav says: “You know, these are great companies, and if the best content is going to win, there needs to be some consolidation in order to have these businesses be stronger and have a better consumer experience.”
Whether WBD will survive that long, we’ll see. The studio’s Q3 results fell 17% to $2.68 billion as theatrical revenue dropped 40% compared to last year.
The main reason for this? Last year’s Q3 was dominated by cinema juggernaut “Barbie”. While “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “Twisters” did well this year, even combined they were not in the same league.
Talking about his company’s uneven theatrical performance, Zaslav singled out the recent release of “Joker: Folie a Deux” saying: “Inconsistency also remains an issue at our motion picture studio, as reinforced recently by the disappointing results of Joker 2.”
WBD saw a lift of 30% in its TV division this quarter, while its game division fell 31% compared to last year when “Mortal Kombat 1” was a big release for the company.
Source: THR
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