Hollywoods 2025 golden child Warner Bros. is back to huge flops and embarrassing duds

“One Battle After Another” is not only the title of last year’s best picture Oscar winner.It’s 2026’s fortune cookie message for Warner Bros., the studio that made it.“You will fight one battle after another.” And lose!The studio’s downturn has been sharp and rapid.

Hollywood declines often are.But it’s made much more noticeable by the Ellison in the room.

Billionaire David Ellison’s Paramount’s acquisition of WB is stuck in legal limbo.He’s threatening to leave California.

It’s a mess.Trying to find a happy headline for this studio is harder than the search for a cancer cure.They’re flailing around like a car dealership balloon man.What a difference a few months make.

Last year WB was basking in industry adulation.They had major box-office and critical hits in the smart horror films “Sinners” and “Weapons” and an eventual best picture winner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle.” Their IP family smash (which also smashed my cerebellum) “A Minecraft Movie” grossed $961 million.

And they notched a string of other boffo successes: “Final Destination: Bloodlines” ($317 million), “The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($499 million) and the shiny new “Superman” ($618 million) all performed. Studio chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy were so confident in their job, they did a media victory lap.“This was David Zaslav‘s strategy from the beginning of restoring Warner Bros.to its days of glory, being the home for the world’s best filmmakers and putting those films in movie theaters around the globe,” De Luca, brown-nosing, told Deadline.Er, I certainly hope this isn’t David’s strategy. Because it’s been flop city over in Burbank.

Duds and embarrassments galore. One pending disaster hasn’t even hit the screen yet.And might never will.This week, the New York Times reported that a deal for a sequel to 2022’s “Barbie” — you know, Warner’s mega-hit starring Margot Robbie that grossed $1.44 b...