.png)
2 hours ago
3 ARTICLE AD
Last week as the town was grappling with the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group saw the double exit of lynchpin executives, Worldwide Marketing President Josh Goldstine and International Theatrical Distribution President Andrew Cripps, a corporate maneuver which continues to jar many.
To say that it’s a time of change at the Burbank, CA lot is an understatement.
2025 marks a time of rebuild for the House of Barbie, with an auteur charged slate of 13 titles, anchored by Superman, James Gunn’s feature blast-off to his new DC studio.
Arguably, it’s the first year that Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy can entirely call their own since taking the reigns in the summer of 2022, without any previous regime blemishes (i.e. The Flash, Furiosa, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom), though the two have been involved in the post production of inherited titles.
Sources tell us that it wasn’t the duo’s intent to have a preponderance of outside signature filmmaker packages on this year’s sked, rather, there was an ambition to restore Warner Bros. as the trusted home for signature filmmakers especially in the wake of the previous WarnerMedia administration led by Jason Kilar, which aggravated talent reps and talent alike with its controversial pandemic theatrical day-and-date release strategy.
So, at a time when the mandate is to create cultural moments from the original works of Paul Thomas Anderson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bong Joon Ho, Ryan Coogler and more, why is the studio letting go of two execs who were instrumental in turning Barbie into Warner Bros’ highest grossing movie ever at $1.44 billion worldwide?
There’s a slew of people around town who are perplexed by the studio’s decision to cut Goldstine and Cripps when the slate arguably needs them the most. Yet, for those on the lot, a fresh perspective and shift in attitude was required in approaching this year’s swing-for-the-fences, non-tentpole slate. The previous methods of selling had to change post haste.
Warners ended 2024 with $3.2 billion at the global box office, per the latest updated figures from Deadline’s Nancy Tartaglione, -19% from 2023’s $3.94 billion. Domestic 2024 came in at $1.1 billion, -23% from 2023. The worldwide deficit between 2023 and 2024 is more or less due to the overseas results of Barbie ($810M).
That downturn in box office, we hear, is not why Goldstine and Cripps were shown the door.
Let’s go back to the beginning to see how we got here.
In the summer of 2022, De Luca and Abdy arrived to a Warner Bros. at which the feature development pipeline from the Kilar era was tailored toward HBO Max in an effort to scale up the streamer to compete with Netflix. The duo’s first task was assessing which projects in development were deemed worthy of theatrical. Many of the projects were pricey pieces of programming for the streamer; a Training Day prequel without Denzel Washington might have suited HBO Max, but couldn’t be justified budget wise for the big screen. Hence, De Luca and Abdy had to rebuild and restock the pipeline. At the time, for every ten projects in development, one would get produced.
But still, how does any studio executive make sense of a $90M-plus period horror title from Ryan Coogler in Sinners? A $100M Maggie Gyllenhaal steam punk horror movie in The Bride!? The most expensive Paul Thomas Anderson movie ever with his untitled Leonardo DiCaprio movie with a pricetag between $100M-$140M? Anderson’s latest has been rumored to be inspired by the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland; the postmodern author who the 11x Oscar-nominated filmmaker adapted previously with Inherent Vice. That 2014 Warner Bros, Joaquin Phoenix led title reportedly cost the studio $20M before P&A and grossed $8.1M at the domestic box office, and $14.8M worldwide.
It’s the winner in feature auctions who makes headlines, not the loser. Had Warner Bros. lost the PTA title as well as Sinners to a rival studio, they would have been scooped up for similar costs. Warners beat out Sony for PTA’s latest, while the studio bested the Culver City lot and Universal for Sinners.
Keep in mind for the entire 2025 slate, except for Legendary’s Minecraft (which Warners is co-funding at 75%), Domain finances 10% of each title’s production cost, hence some risk is mitigated. The goal remains for Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group to create PVOD and pay-one window opportunities for Max. The bigger the theatrical box office that Warners can generate, the bigger the downstream on those movies.
When it came to committing to Coogler on Sinners, Warners was looking to be in business with a filmmaker who is known for original commercial movies ala Nolan. Coogler was on that list. Part of the deal for Sinners entailed a 25-year licensing of Sinners whereby ownership of the film reverts back to Coogler. It was a deal point that was important to the WME-repped director, and similar to the 20-year license deal Sony hammered out for Quentin Tarantino on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That concession for Warner Bros. was one worth making in order to keep Coogler in the fold for future projects.
Sinners’ price point per the studio’s greenlight committee made sense as the pic is a horror tentpole play. Ditto for Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! Netflix put the $100M movie in turnaround from the multi-hyphenate whose previous Oscar-nominated movie, The Lost Daughter, cost only $5M. Jacking up the budget on The Bride! was Gyllenhaal’s desire to shoot the movie in New York.
As far as the lofty cost of PTA, the comp which justifies the spend boils down to the marquee appeal of DiCaprio. Many top auteurs’ highest-grossing movies of their career star DiCaprio, i.e. Martin Scorsese (top five pics led by Wolf of Wall Street at $407M WW starred the actor), Alejandro Inarritu (The Revenant at $533M WW), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained at $426M, followed by Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at $392M), Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby at $354M) and Nolan up until Oppenheimer (DiCaprio in Inception is the director’s second highest grossing at $839M). The hope is that the same is true for PTA. His top grossing film to date being 2007’s There Will Be Blood at $76M WW. Warners’ play for Anderson is very much in the vein of late Time Warner honcho Steve Ross with Stanley Kubrick. PTA’s latest will have access to Imax screens on its Aug. 8 release date.
Which leads us to the much-delayed $80M Mickey 17, Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho’s next movie which was finished in January 2023 and has changed release dates four times (March 29, 2024; then Jan. 31, 2025, Easter weekend April 18 and finally March 7). Bong gets final cut and has been working on the ideal cut, collaborating with the studio on their suggestions. Tracking services are concerned that the first two trailers didn’t exactly set the world on fire. While two trailers have generated over 41M views per social media analytics firm RelishMix, the trailer’s viral rate is low at 6:1 next to Superman‘s massive 317:1 and Minecraft‘s 50:1. At the same time, when it comes to director Bong, the filmmaker has few box office comps, his highest being his multi-Oscar winning Parasite at $262M. Much like Robert Eggers found a growing fanbase in Nosferatu, the hope is that Bong will experience a similar boom. Tracking sources tell us that the movie’s draw rests largely on star Robert Pattinson’s shoulders, and the new release date allows The Batman actor to promote the project. A third trailer will drop soon in an attempt to reignite the campaign about the comedic astronaut who dies several times.
Course corrections have also been taken in the campaigns for Minecraft, which originally put off fans of the game in its live-action take. The second trailer had more CGI effects at its disposal and won the game faithful over; a sect who can be less forgiving than comic book fanboys. The second trailer for New Line’s horror movie Companion looks to be raising awareness, especially after the studio bought spots on NFL games last weekend before its Jan. 31 release. The studio is spending just under $30M in P&A on the $10M production from filmmaker Drew Hancock.
There’s still a chance that Warners could push Zach Cregger’s horror movie Weapons from its MLK 2026 release into this year, but that’s only if Imax screens become available. There is an open slot on Dec. 19. Apple’s F1 looks to be more of an overseas play given the popularity of the sport abroad, while everything rests on the shoulders of Gunn’s Superman to be the Deadpool & Wolverine ($211.4M U.S. opening, $444.7M WW) of this year. The first trailer drop, orchestrated by Goldstine, was the most viewed in Warner’s history with 250M views in 24 hours.
Franchise hopes abound down the road in Lord of the Rings The Hunt for Gollum, Practical Magic 2, DC’s Clayface and Supergirl, Drew Goddard’s incoming script for a new Matrix, a new Gremlins from Christopher Columbus and a Goonies treatment.
While the massive launch of Superman worked last month, it was clear that the Bong and Coogler projects require pivoting in their sell; Sinners only has a 17:1 viral rate.
That said, sources tell us that Goldstine and Cripps were gobsmacked by their firings.
Let’s start with the cutting of Cripps. The notion we hear was that the David Zaslav-run Warner Bros Discovery wanted to bring global distribution under one head, that being domestic distribution chief Jeff Goldstein. Zaslav loves to emulate Disney corporate structures (i.e. Marvel has its Kevin Feige, DC has Gunn and Peter Safran) and that studio has one global distribution head, most recently Tony Chambers who’s segueing to be the President of EMEA with a successor to be named). The fact that foreign ticket sales on Red One, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Twisters were less than their domestic results had nothing to do with Cripps’ firing. Many of these chains — i.e. Cinepolis, Cinemark, AMC and Regal — have theaters abroad and Goldstein is already in conversations with them on domestic affairs. The studio’s senior leadership bet on Goldstein, a Warners vet for close to four decades. Cripps arrived at Warners in August 2019 following the Disney-Fox merger.
There are myriad theories behind Goldstine’s departure. One is that the marketing czar was told that he’d have to report to a new Warner Discovery CMO across all brands, and that didn’t land well with him (not true). Some say the marketing vet had a history of challenging senior leadership. One source tells us that Goldstine is “the ultimate team player” and that the only major fight he had with upper leadership was over the release of Dune: Part Two during the strikes; the exec arguing that the movie needed its cast of Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet to open the film (the pic debuted to $82.5M stateside). Others say that his marketing spend didn’t hit their appropriate box office yields, particularly in the worst case scenarios. Another take was that Goldstine and his team were less adaptable when it came to selling non-tentpoles in a new marketing dynamic of earned and paid media.
Yet, what we can’t ignore is Goldstine’s 35-year career in feature marketing, from Sony through Universal to now. Those who’ve worked with Goldstine call him a “creative genius” and one of the top marketing executives in Hollywood. He was even behind the success of such De Luca productions as The Social Network at Sony and the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise at Universal. He was the first guy to open a movie to $100M-plus (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man) and has been champion for filmmakers since he was a 22-year-old assisting Francis Ford Coppola in cutting the Dracula trailer in 1992. He’s worked with an array of name filmmakers including James L. Brooks and Nancy Meyers. He made Jerry Maguire a movie for both sports fans and women, for its romcom sensibilities. He propelled Jordan Peele’s politically charged horror movie Get Out to blockbuster status and an Oscar glory. He’s been a consistent adopter of the changing modes of selling a movie, from embracing social media on The Purge franchise to making Kilar’s theatrical day-and-date releases a success with big viewership on the Max service and opening weekends for pics like Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, and more.
For those close to Goldstine and Cripps, it’s not that they couldn’t handle an eclectic slate. In fact the exec team that Goldstine cultivated, the ones who made Barbie a success and who know how to blitzkrieg a tentpole — global marketing heads Dana Nussbaum and Christian Davin, EVP Creative Advertising, John Stanford — remain in place at the studio.
Some see their exits from Warner Bros. not as a matter of playbook, but rather arithmetic: In a Zaslav-led era of job cutting, the duo are simply collateral damage in billions of cost savings.
