Heard that but don't fully believe it, as they are still funding new movies/tv shows as of now and could easily be able to get a loan to put the movies out if needed. Only way I could see this happening if they really don't want to take out any loans, which is beyond crazy as they need to get movies out in the first place to make money. Also to make note House Party is dated for December meaning they now have 3 movies.
Been trying to look to find WBD cash on hand, but latest numbers I could find was $2.58B for Q2 of 2022, did find a newer $4 billion number but that site was iffy to me
Discovery Communications reported $2.58B in Cash and Equivalent for its second fiscal quarter of 2022.
tradingeconomics.com
If I had to guess it was done for the following reasons
1. 2022 is already fucked, and due to the merger they are going to have less movies overall in 2023, so why not move more movies into 2023 to help revenues for that year and give more of a chance to beating their projections.
2. Shazam 2 was going to get killed by Avatar 2, new date also gives Shazam imax screens it would have missed out on.
3. Aqauamn is getting reshoots so may have needed so sort of delay, christmas was likely picked due to how well it the first did then
4, Evil Dead Rises is now moving to cinema release, they may have wanted to avoid going against the new Halloween thus the 2023 date.
However things that don't make sense to me.
1. They already have Wonka and the Color Purple musical dated closed to Aquaman new date. Also have the new Star Trek and Ghostbusters dated days before and while they are smaller movies than Aquaman they will still all eat into it's box office.
2. The Flash didn't change dates, thought they would push that in the hopes people forget about Ezra or push it forward to avoid anything worse that coming out. Also Flash opens a week before Indiana Jones 5 which for sure cut any legs off from the Flash it may have
3. April is a pretty dead month cinema wise, would make more sense to put one of the bigger movies there and put Evil Dead Rises in a spot like May to act as counter programming against the blockbusters or place it in January or February where it has no competition, Scream 5 was able to do $140 million with a January date last year.
4, Has stated they plan to put around 25 out in cinemas a year but so far have only greenlit one as far as I can tell.
It's worth noting with the new changes, only Shazzam was pushed to 2023, the House Party and Evil Dead Rises were due for 2022 but that was when they were HBO Max movies and House Party is still making 2022. Other movies pushed to 2023 seem to have done before the merger if I'm remembering correctly.
They left Warner with 55 billion in debt.
Disney have $46.022B in debt but that was after them buying Fox, got to wonder what happened to give WB that level of debt premerger. Mean debt isn't uncommon for big business but that level is just crazy,
