The current state of the Warner Bros/Discovery merger

[ChaseJxyz]

I have been paying attention to this with some interest because I have one (1) horse in this race. You will see by the end.

So WB and Discovery Communications are merging, oh boy! This has been ongoing for awhile now, but some various things have come out the past week, so it's worth talking about.

Apparently there was gonna be a (streaming first? only?) Batgirl movie, which I only heard of 'cause they shelved it. They showed it to test audiences and it was so fucking bad they determined it is unfixable. So they are just shelving this $90 M movie and no one will ever see it. Then again that's what they did with that one Fantastic Four movie so the company could keep the rights and that still got "released" by some enterprising pirates. So hopefully that will happen in this case, too. They also cancelled a Scooby Doo movie. The new company wants to only put movies in theaters because that makes more money than putting them on streaming.

They've been doing some pretty vicious cost-cutting measures. They canceled all live-action family and kids shows on HBO, all original stuff on HBO being filmed in Europe...lots of original HBO stuff is just gone. Not Game of Thrones stuff, of course, since that makes money. You saw how badly Netflix did last quarter, lots of streaming places are struggling. So we gotta tighten our belts, guys.

There is HBO Go Max Now +, the streaming service for HBO/WB stuff (which has risen from the ashes from HBO Go, HBO Go Plus, HBO Max, they were all different things based on if you bought it itself or if your parents had HBO as part of their cable package and you used their account. Why did they have all these different apps for just different types of accounts? I don't know) and there is Discovery+, which is Discovery Channel/TLC/Animal Planet/Food Network etc stuff. Next year, there will be a singular streaming service that will have both of these things together. So there will probably be yet another app you will have to download for your Xbox. No word yet on what it will be called (and does it matter? Besides Netflix and Hulu they all have stupid names) or what it will cost. Apparently there will be a regular tier and a cheaper, ad-supported tier. And maybe later a lots and lots of ads but still free tier.

Which brings us to this morning. I woke up to 3 separate people having sent me this tweet.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1555299697832624128

The thing that you are probably the most ?????? about is The 90 Day Fiance Universe. You see, I have horrible taste. I like reality tv. I have been watching 90 Day Fiance for....awhile now. The idea of the show is on 90 Day Fiance (vanilla), an American is in love with a not-American and they are now here on a K1 visa, so they have 90 days to get married or now they're an undocumented immigrant (and they sure won't let you in a second time if you do that). The 90 days are supposed to be to actually get married, to do the planning or whatever. Not "I'm gonna live with this person for 90 days to determine if I WANT to get married." Anyways, it is very popular, and there are a ton of spinoffs. And I have always jokingly referred to it as the 90DFCU (90 Day Fiance Cinematic Universe), because the MCU/DCU. They release 1-3 90 minute (!!!) episodes every single week. Disney wishes they had this much content.

Discussion questions:

• How badly do you want to see the dumpster fire that is the Batgirl movie?
• Has Diner, Drive-Ins and Dives ever had an episode where you live/in your home town? Have you ever gone to one of those restaurants?
• Are there any IPs that you expected to be on the list but weren't? What do you think are the most valuable IPs?

 

[Cobalt Jade]

Not a fan of superhero movies, so meh on Batgirl. Same for any kind of reality show whose draw is people and their romantic relationships with other people. Actually, any reality show in general, save for the ones that promote a certain skill, like pottery or doing SFX makeup for movies. Those are tolerable.

I do like the DDD series though, though I don't go out of my way to watch it. Every time I see an episode I want to visit the dive in question, though it's usually across the country. In Seattle I've been to two -- Georgia's Greek Deli and Piroshky Piroshky, though not because of the show. Georgia's was a few blocks from my house and sadly burned down a year ago. They had the best breakfasts! And in their heyday, if you went on a weekend night, there was music and sometimes bellydancing.

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

Warner Brothers, under the executive direction of notable Trump-fan and white-men-need-more-representation buff David Zaslav, is going through a purge of women-led and nonwhite-led films in favor of more white guy stuff.

As David Zaslav prepared to take over Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., one of the largest media companies in the world, he told friends in Hollywood that he would hire the best people he could find. Gender and racial diversity, while a factor, would not be his top priority, he said, according to multiple people he told.

His methods have resulted in a notable amount of homogeneity at the top of the new media giant. Given six seats on the new company’s board, Zaslav and Discovery appointed a roster of all White male directors. The majority of the chief executive officer’s 13 direct reports, many of whom were recent hires, are White men. Meanwhile, Zaslav in April fired Warner Bros. chief Ann Sarnoff, one of the highest-ranking women in Hollywood — without filling her role — and replaced WarnerMedia’s heads of communications and finance with White men from Discovery.

The Batgirl movie had an unusually diverse cast and crew (drected by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah from a screenplay by Christina Hodson, starring Black Latina Leslie Grace) and there is a lot of sentiment that WB axed it not because it was dire, but because they have decided to cater to a white male audience that doesn't want to see diversity in its entertainment.

WB seems to have also axed its "Supergirl" project. I saw a commenter call the cancellation of the nearly-completed "Batgirl" "a diversity erasure jamboree".

Yet WB is still, apparently, in the midst of all these cancellations, planning to release the "Flash" movie starring the incredibly problematic Ezra Miller and still-yet-another "Joker" movie (the favorite character of alt-right dudebros, going by avatars), with Harley Quinn as the totally-heterosexual love interest (criiiiiinge).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1555312086309150720

 

[ChaseJxyz]

That male/female dichotomy image showed up on my feed after I made this thread lol. Girls aren't allowed to have fandoms!!!

But Ezra Miller is a they/them that's pretty diverse to have them be the lead role for a movie, right? (this is a joke)

 

[Myrealana]

I found out about the Batgirl movie like two days before they killed it, and I was SO excited. Michael Keaton back as Batman? Latina Barbara? Brendan Frasier?

Yes, please! To all of that.

DDD has been to a few places near me. I've eaten at some of them, though I found them before Guy did. Sam's No 3 is a good breakfast place. Tocabe is Native American owned and does fry breads and other NA foods. Maria Empanada is to die for.

I'm wondering what they're going to do about TCM. My husband and I have been picking a classic movie every Monday night and watching it together. And their Studio Ghibli channel! We've been gradually showing those movies to our nieces and nephews, and they really enjoy it.