Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels has dismissed the “blown out of proportion” press coverage of last month’s abrupt decision by the company to shelve its $90 million-budgeted “Batgirl” film.
Speaking at the Bank of America Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference this week, Wiedenfels talked about the intense scrutiny on the new regime since the $43 billion merger was completed in April.
Asked if WBD’s reputation amongst talent and agency reps had taken a hit based on “Batgirl” and assorted other cancellations of HBO Max shows, he said it hadn’t, putting down such talk as “media likes to talk about media, I guess.”
Asked by the moderator if the project’s scrapping represented a reset of the company’s DC strategy, Wiedenfels said: “No. … There’s a new team coming in, forming a view, providing a financial framework to assess these things. The focus is, on a go-forward basis here.”
He adds the company is “spending more than ever in the history of the two legacy companies on content” and will continue to make significant investments, just with a “different financial rigor and a different focus on full utilization across all platforms.”
Source: Deadline
