On March 30, 2025, Bloomberg reported that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was interviewing potential replacements for embattled production executives Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. The timing was curious, given that De Luca and Abdy were a) preparing to show off their upcoming production slate at CineCon, the yearly gathering of movie theater owners in Las Vegas, and b) preparing to release the studio's first blockbuster of the year with "A Minecraft Movie." WB also had Ryan Coogler's
buzzy "Sinners" on the way. And while that was not a preordained smash, it would seem foolish to fire the duo responsible for winning a highly competitive bidding war that could help the studio continue to repair its filmmaker-friendly reputation after losing Christopher Nolan due to his displeasure over WB's decision to release its films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max amidst the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Obviously, cooler heads prevailed, and it's a good thing they did because it would've looked, at best, awfully awkward for WB to be in the midst of a massive box office win streak while the executive duo that orchestrated it had either taken a gig elsewhere or were the hottest free agents on the exec market. Just look at this run: "A Minecraft Movie," "Sinners," "Final Destination Bloodlines," "F1: The Movie," "Superman," and now, with an impressive global opening (bolstered by rave reviews and excellent word of mouth from moviegoers via its A- Cinemascore), Zach Cregger's instant horror classic "Weapons."
It's a wild change of fortune for De Luca and Abdy, who were taking heat for two box office bombs they didn't even greenlight at the outset of April: Bong Joon Ho's "Mickey 17" (which got the go-ahead seven months before they joined the company) and Barry Levinson's "The Alto Knights" (a low-energy gangster opus fast-tracked into production by Zaslav soon after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger was approved). Nevertheless, rival studios and possibly Zaslav himself were hitting up every top Hollywood journal in town eager to hold De Luca and Abdy responsible for the movie industry's overall struggles. These "dopes" were greenlighting original movies with massive budgets, which felt particularly irresponsible given that the penny-pinching Zaslav was shelving finished movies like "Batgirl" and "Coyote vs. Acme" to help stanch the spate of red ink.
How you like 'em now, Hollywood?
Read more: The Greatest Character Actors Of All Time, Ranked
The Original R-Rated Horror Of Sinners And Weapons Are The Crown Jewels Of De Luca And Abdy's WB Revival
Obligatory hindsight disclaimer noted, De Luca and Abdy are reaping the rewards for running a studio in ideal fashion. They hired top filmmaking talent, gave them space to realize their visions, and hit the jackpot with moviegoers and critics. And this was predictable to a degree. I know the reporters who ran the gloom-and-doom stories have better sources than I do, so they had to know that "Sinners" and "Weapons" were putting up impressive test screening numbers. Obviously, you've still got to sell the damn things, but Warner Bros. did a masterful job of getting "Weapons" on people's radars early, and baiting the hook with every parent's worst nightmare: the inexplicable disappearance of a child. I thought the "Sinners" marketing campaign felt a tad hedged by comparison (particularly during the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, along with the NBA Playoffs), but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.
I do know that when "Sinners" became a verified domestic box office smash, Variety tried to suggest the heat was still on De Luca and Abdy because the Coogler-directed R-rated horror movie cost $90 million, and was, thus, not profitable just yet. Given the reviews and the film's ecstatic word of mouth, though, it was suspiciously pessimistic of the trade outlet to suggest the movie could fall short of profitability. As Ben Stiller wrote on X/Twitter at the time: "In what universe does a 60 million dollar opening for an original studio movie warrant this headline?"
There Are Challenges To Come For De Luca And Abdy
The industry ill-will for De Luca and Abdy has died down over the last few months, but rest assured that the risk-averse execs desperate for more thorough control of the movies they make (AI is their precious) and their promotion-craving minions and entertainment reporters will go ham on De Luca and Abdy if Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" (which allegedly cost somewhere between $130 million and $175 million) underperforms like PTA films tend to do. (Fingers crossed it's a masterpiece and his first blockbuster.) They'll also start sounding the alarm again on Maggie Gyllenhaal's punk rock horror flick "The Bride!" (based on James Whale's "The Bride of Frankenstein"), which is an affront to filmmaking decency because the execs rolled the dice on a nervy vision from a first-rate actor-director who is untested at an $80 million budget level. It's a fickle business, and everyone in the world has a fishbowl memory nowadays.
If I were a wickedly ambitious Sammy Glick type or a widely loathed and ridiculed media CEO looking for someone to take the blame for my shocking ineptitude (which compelled my company's irate shareholders to symbolically vote down my $52 million pay package), I might've viewed late March of this year as the prime time to get entertainment journalists on the phone and place a strategic emphasis on De Luca and Abdy's two riskiest greenlights, even though I likely knew they had bangers aplenty lined up. Of course, De Luca and Abdy have phones, too, and can bend some showbiz ears this week if they're down for a victory lap. Or maybe they'll simply be satisfied to keep doing what they've been doing: hiring great filmmakers to move the medium forward. Because if there's to be a hopeful, healthy future for the American film industry, it'll be in the creation of original movies and studio tentpoles made with a personal flourish. Film buffs should all be rooting for De Luca and Abdy.
If you're looking for the easiest way to keep up with all the major movie and TV news, why not sign up to our free newsletter?
Read the original article on SlashFilm.
