How Warner Bros. Continues to Fumble its IPs
Warner Brothers, we have to talk.
What are you doing?
Warner Brothers’ cinematic output has been extremely lackluster with its biggest IPs in recent years, whether it’s the DC universe and even as recently as the failed Space Jam sequel. Within the last twelve months, we witnessed an extremely disappointing Wonder Woman sequel, an overbloated and bizarre four-hour Justice League cut, and now a Space Jam film that didn’t even focus much on the Looney Tunes characters which the original was heavily centered around.
Side-Note: Of course the GOAT conversation is going to be hilarious if this film can’t beat the of $230 million of Jordan’s 1996 film, but that is for another day.
We all recognize Disney as the entertainment titan with the best lineup of intellectual properties in the entire world, as they now own Mickey, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and even the freakin’ Simpsons. That being said, we can’t keep pretending like the competitors are devoid of legitimate IPs to make content from. Whether its Paramount’s Nickelodeon (with way more potential than they realize) and Star Trek universe or Comcast’s Dreamworks/Illumination combination, each major studio has profitable IPs to make money off of if the material is quality enough.
But the one that truly has the resume to stand up against Disney directly is Warner Bros. And they keep failing miserably even with the plethora of past content they can rely on for figuring out how to tell great stories from the IPs they possess. There is a chance for Disney-sized success, but they have to figure out how to actually and properly utilize their characters.
We can start with the issues related to the DCEU, which even with some hits (Wonder Woman) and some surprises (Aquaman), are leagues underneath the cultural and economic impact of a Marvel film and even lately, Marvel-based television shows. WandaVision and Loki were constantly at the top of streaming ratings, and six of the 20 highest-grossing films of all-time are Marvel properties. You can’t tell me that the most popular superheroes in the world, Batman and Superman, can’t pull off these same numbers. But the latest Justice League version didn’t do anything, and the animated Justice League/Batman films aren’t being made with the proper budget.
What drives higher numbers is quality, if its good, people will watch. Parasite was a South Korean dark comedy thriller with zero English dubbing and ended up making $50 million in the United States alone. La Casa de Papel/Money Heist literally came out of nowhere and is one of the most popular shows in the planet. Regardless of your opinion of the Marvel films and shows. Marvel is very much beloved, and this audience continues their love and support for Marvel with every new entertainment output. Even during the pandemic, Black Widow is on pace to cross $200 million and become the biggest film in the United States for 2021----and this is with a character we know died in Avengers: Endgame.
Unlike most, Disney has been excellent in its research into the Marvel lore to see what works, what needs updating, and will even toss in some deep cuts to keep the biggest Marvel fans invested. Marvel’s Loki for example is a fresh idea that’s a mesh of previous ideas and personas done in a variety of comics over the years. Warner Bros.’ output of DC content is not quality, and therefore success cannot follow. Most infuriating about this is that Warner Bros. -still- hasn’t quite figured out to look to the past to see what makes their characters work, what is the proper ways to tell stories with these characters, and how to improve upon them.
Batman: The Animated Series remains arguably the greatest comic book cartoon series of all-time, and some of those writers are still working today----but being relegated to cartoons and video games as opposed to the big screen. Most of what we perceive as the best version of the Batman mythos can be traced here: the detective work, the iteration of the Joker, the art-deco style of Gotham City, and even his eventual relationships with Robin, Batgirl, and Alfred. To add to that, the spiritual animated spinoffs of the late-90s/early 2000s like Superman: The Animated Series and 2001’s Justice League helped establish an animated DC universe nearly a decade before Marvel would do the same. The stability of the writing, animation, directing, and continuity would create the blueprint for success that very few have properly imitated---including the very same company who created it. Why Paul Dini and Bruce Timm don’t have a stronger position within the DCEU remains one of the great mysteries of this century.
The Batman Arkham series of video games also had some compelling stories and excellent ideas, but none of them are translating to the Batman cinematic universe. Then, even more baffling, Christopher Nolan from 2005 to 2012 gave Warner Bros. three popular and well-received Batman films to draw from. The Dark Knight remains one of the highest-rated comic book films in history. The Batmans we’ve seen in the last decade (including the one coming up, which I have strong worries about) just doesn’t have the same gravitas and visual impact of the Batmans we’ve enjoyed in the past. Snyder’s Batman in particular was the worst, but let’s also not fully absolve the animation unit for what they did to Batgirl in The Killing Joke.
And now let’s discuss why Space Jam also failed when it had every opportunity to succeed: zero focus and faith in the power of the Looney Tunes IP.
Warner Bros. treated the Looney Tunes like a mere cameo in their arsenal of properties when in actuality is the backbone for the company’s initial success. Looney Tunes is the anti-Disney, it’s the cool kid in the boring classroom, it’s the one willing to toy and bend the rules to deploy entertainment value. Looney Tunes should be the antithesis for what we get from Disney. We got none of this energy with the new Space Jam, it appears they didn’t even do much research towards what made the original Space Jam well-received----and here’s a hint, it wasn’t Bill Murray (although his performance was awesome).
They decided to stuff the movie with memes, modern references, and cameos and appearances of other IPs in Warner Bros.’ arsenal, as opposed to sticking with the Looney Tunes and their personalities to tell the story and deliver the content. Gripe all you want about the original, but previous films Space Jam and even Looney Tunes Back in Action did a good job expanding the expressive personas of Bugs Bunny and co. while poking fun at themselves and the premise. Sadly, the same did not happen here, instead it feels like Looney Tunes presenting a giant Warner Bros. commercial. Even the wild modern-day cartoons of Mickey and Minnie (despite their torrid animation) are embracing the wacky side and have out-Looney Tuned the Looney Tunes of today.
The company has nearly a century of cartoons, filmmaking, and Looney Tunes-related content to draw from to potentially give us a new generation look of the brand. But if you don’t fully embrace, respect, or research the IP, then the results will always be ho-hum. In this superpower battle for relevance, simply owning the IP isn’t enough, you have to utilize it and observe what makes them tick, what makes them appeal to audiences. Disney has practically perfected this, with Star Wars being the main exception, and even then, its being improved upon thanks to Dave Filoni’s Bad Bunch and (especially) The Mandalorian.
Warner Brothers today clearly has yet to do the proper research and has yet to use the proper resources to bring about their biggest IPs to the latest generation of moviegoers and entertainment consumers. Wonder Woman has already lost its way on its second film (virtually ruining all of Diana’s strength and admirable qualities of the original), the Snyder fandom has hijacked DCEU, and now we’ve seen a complete waste of Looney Tunes in a giant advertisement masquerading as a film. If WB and its HBO Max wants a smidge of a chance to catch up to Disney+ and Marvel’s claim to the box office throne, it has to do much better at recognizing what they possess.