Blaze Media Reports: Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. announced on an earnings call that the game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lost the company $200 million.
On the Q1 2024 earnings call, investors heard from President and CEO David Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels.
Zaslav broke the bad news first and stated that "unfortunately," the studio's Q1 financials were overshadowed by the tough sales in the games department "following the great performance of Hogwarts Legacy last year and the disappointing release of Suicide Squad in Q1 in our gaming group."
"On the advertising front," Zaslav continued, "total company ad sales were down 7% in the quarter."
Wiedenfels then spoke to the studio losing hundreds of millions of dollars year-over-year. He, too, explained that despite a great performance of the game Hogwarts Legacy, the studio still hemorrhaged from the Suicide Squad game.
"Starting with Studios, the $400 million plus year-over-year decline in Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp [comparable sales] we faced in games against the success of Hogwarts Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization] during the first quarter."
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notwokeshows
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May 15, 2024
Warner Bros is getting a hard-earned lesson in the difference between what people want to buy and what Warner Bros wanted to sell them. Games are supposed to be fun. Screeching "the message" throughout the game isn't fun.