The fight between Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. could mark the breakup of a 25-year partnership. What went wrong?
For Hollywood business types, the rift between movie studio Warner Bros. and its longtime financing partner Village Roadshow Entertainment Group has been a little like seeing “The Matrix’s” Neo and Trinity break up.
The widening dispute is a window into the dramatic company overhauls and strategic shifts that have defined the entertainment business during the last several years. Those include the race to streaming, changes in company DNA and the unwinding of traditional co-financing deals as studios increasingly want to control established franchises for reboots and spinoffs. As these trends accelerate, such fights likely aren’t going away.Scarlett Johansson and Walt Disney Co.
But Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow couldn’t come to terms ahead of the fourth “Matrix” film’s debut, and now the finger-pointing is rampant. Beyond the streaming concerns, Village Roadshow accused Warner Bros. of preventing the company from participating in works based on its movies in violation of its rights.Warner Bros. angered Hollywood with its decision to put movies in theaters and on streaming service HBO Max simultaneously. It now faces a turning point as the studio’s parent company prepares its film strategy for the streaming age. In the background, a new owner: Discovery.
Producers who’ve worked with Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow, who spoke anonymously to protect relationships, were quick to point out that neither firm is quite the same as it was when the pact began in 1997. Many of the people who oversaw Warner Bros. during the good times of the Village Roadshow relationship — from Bob Daly and Terry Semel to Meyer and Alan Horn to Kevin Tsujihara — are long gone. Still, some of the people who manage day-to-day business at Warner Bros., including chief operating officer Carolyn Blackwood, have been at the company for years.
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