Warner Bros. Discovery faced a lot of criticism in 2022 for canceling finished films and series — most notably the Batgirl movie — and removing some older titles from its HBO Max streaming platform. As it turns out, the company may have been ahead of the curve.
A fresh wave of cost-cutting at other companies from Disney to AMC Networks made WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels seem prophetic.
“We’ve received a lot of public noise about some of the content writedowns we’ve taken, reflecting an industry that has gone overboard and into a spending frenzy,” Wiedenfels said at a Citibank conference Jan. 5. “We shed a lot of the excess last year and I think that’s something everyone else in the industry will go through. We are coming out of an irrational period of overspending with very limited focus on return on investment and I think others will need to make some adjustments which, to be honest, we are now behind.”
AMC Networks has been particularly aggressive in its cuts, canceling already-ordered second seasons of legal drama 61st Street and sci-fi series Moonhaven, and canceling series orders for Demascus and Invitation to a Bonfire. The sci-fi comedies “Demascus” and “61st Street” had already wrapped up production on their respective seasons, while “Invitation to a Bonfire,” starring Tatiana Maslany, was in the middle of filming.
The moves come as AMC Networks seeks write-downs of up to $400 million on programming to get itself on a more stable financial footing. Sources tell that the company is prioritizing “core” shows — think: the Anne Rice drama Interview with the Vampires and Mayfair Witches and the ongoing Walking Dead universe — and will likely limit development as well. (The company also announced a round of layoffs in December.)
Recent casualties include ABC’s Avalon, a drama series by David E. Kelley and Michael Connelly, which was sunk in a pilot after production (major studio A+E Studios, which produced with Disney’s 20th TV, buys the show); a feature film based on Comedy Central’s Workaholics at Paramount+ that was canceled five weeks before filming was scheduled to begin; and Netflix’s animated comedy Inside Job, which was revoked for its second season.
The wave of non-renewals and canceled series orders is the second to hit the industry in the last three years. The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 saw a similar spate of decisions affecting Netflix’s GLOW and The Society, ABC’s Stumptown, and Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida, among others. Those cancellations have been fueled in part by pandemic concerns — including the additional cost of testing and social distancing measures before vaccines become available — while the latest moves come as the streaming-era hangover sets in and media conglomerates seek to clean red ink from their balance sheets.
Unsurprisingly, the recent wave has caused dismay in the creative industries, with some writers urging their union to make the company takebacks an issue in forthcoming contract negotiations. The Directors Guild declined to comment; THR has also reached out to SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild.
Additional reporting by Alex Weprin.