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Wonder how it's possible. > "The breach of contract lawsuit against Warner Bros. came after the studio introduced “The Matrix Resurrections” in December 2021 o

Wonder how it's possible. > "The breach of contract lawsuit against Warner Bros. came after the studio introduced “The Matrix Resurrections” in December 2021 on its HBO Max streaming service the same day the film was released in movie theaters. Village Roadshow complained that the Burbank studio’s pivot away from an exclusive theatrical release had destroyed the value of a key franchise." -- how is that true? Did they lose that much box office money on Matrix Resurrections that cashflow or lack of revenues made them collapse? > “A confluence of macro-economic factors have weighed heavily on the company’s balance sheet,” -- Now we're getting somewhere. An unbalanced budget? What might have caused it I wonder? Would they have a worse time than the other studios or have less cash reserves etc? A shame the article doesn't give many answers. Would love to know.

fsckboy 2y ago
I just assume every step of this was hollywood accounting tricks to not pay a bunch of the people they contractually owe money to. eddy murphy called it "monkey points" https://hollywoodlexicon.com/points.html https://hollywoodlexicon.com/points.html
yieldcrv 2y ago
Bankruptcy doesn't mean they run out of money. Its protection from creditors on the expectation that a current or perceived liability will impair them, and the protection thwarts it. But yes 99% correlated to having no ability to repay. Its possible they expect a countersuit to win. Or they borrowed to much to pay lawyers.
- donavanm 2y ago
  The proximate cause seems to be a $100M claim from WB against VREG regarding additional finance costs for matrix revolutions circa 2021. VREGs counter(?) suit was recently kicked back and told to go to arbitration. VREG also claims to have spent $19M pursuing their legal claims/response so far. My read is legal costs + no productions in the pipeline + no recent profitable activity + a likely ~$100M arbitration result is exactly whats led to bankruptcy.
harrall 2y ago
You can’t trust public statements for reasoning. One retailer I liked blamed “shifting consumer demand for their demise but they also doubled their store count by like 100 within two years. Consumer demand did shift but they also legitimately f’d up.
bravoetch 2y ago
The article mentions they pivoted to a different business model just before the pandemic. That model was to be a full in-house studio. Their timing was unfortunate.
smcin 2y ago
“The Matrix Resurrections” was released Dec 22, 2021 (during Covid) with only $10.7m US opening, $37.7m US gross and $157m worldwide (cinema) gross against a reported budget of $190m. So it certainly seems like WB's switch to simultaneous streaming+cinematic release lost them a packet (although it got so-so reviews so maybe it wouldn't have done great ordinarily anyway). https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10838180/ https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10838180/
- mmooss 2y ago
  How much did they gross from streaming it?

fsckboy 2y ago

I just assume every step of this was hollywood accounting tricks to not pay a bunch of the people they contractually owe money to. eddy murphy called it "monkey points" https://hollywoodlexicon.com/points.html https://hollywoodlexicon.com/points.html

yieldcrv 2y ago

Bankruptcy doesn't mean they run out of money. Its protection from creditors on the expectation that a current or perceived liability will impair them, and the protection thwarts it. But yes 99% correlated to having no ability to repay. Its possible they expect a countersuit to win. Or they borrowed to much to pay lawyers.

donavanm 2y ago
The proximate cause seems to be a $100M claim from WB against VREG regarding additional finance costs for matrix revolutions circa 2021. VREGs counter(?) suit was recently kicked back and told to go to arbitration. VREG also claims to have spent $19M pursuing their legal claims/response so far. My read is legal costs + no productions in the pipeline + no recent profitable activity + a likely ~$100M arbitration result is exactly whats led to bankruptcy.

harrall 2y ago

You can’t trust public statements for reasoning. One retailer I liked blamed “shifting consumer demand for their demise but they also doubled their store count by like 100 within two years. Consumer demand did shift but they also legitimately f’d up.

bravoetch 2y ago

The article mentions they pivoted to a different business model just before the pandemic. That model was to be a full in-house studio. Their timing was unfortunate.

smcin 2y ago

“The Matrix Resurrections” was released Dec 22, 2021 (during Covid) with only $10.7m US opening, $37.7m US gross and $157m worldwide (cinema) gross against a reported budget of $190m. So it certainly seems like WB's switch to simultaneous streaming+cinematic release lost them a packet (although it got so-so reviews so maybe it wouldn't have done great ordinarily anyway). https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10838180/ https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10838180/

mmooss 2y ago
How much did they gross from streaming it?