Last week David Zaslav struck again. The Warner Bros. Discovery honcho, who achieved widespread infamy for such Bond villain decisions as cancelling nearly completed movies, decided to cancel another one. Into the void was thrown the much-anticipated Looney Tunes film Coyote vs. Acme, a clever-sounding riff on the belovedly violent Wile E.-Roadrunner shorts. After much furor, the company wound up backtracking on that one — sort of — but that may not be enough to spare them the wrath of Congress.
The @WBD tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive.
As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines they should review this conduct.
As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money. https://t.co/Vb8vj3brD7
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) November 14, 2023
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro took to Twitter/X Monday to rip Warner Bros. Discovery a new one, vowing to do what Congress used to do: go after large monopolies, such as movie studios, who’ve amassed too much power.
“The WBD tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive,” Castro tweeted. “As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines they should review this conduct. As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
It’s not the first time Castro has gone after Warner Bros. Discovery. In April, he called on the powers-that-be to look at AT&T’s semi-recent sale of Warner Bros. to Discovery, especially after they deep-sixed both Batgirl and the Scoob! sequel. He argued that the corporation could “adopt potentially anticompetitive practices.”
Before WBD nixed Coyote vs. Acme, it was test screening through the roof. To make matters worse, the company jettisoned hundreds of classic Looney Tunes shorts from the streamer formerly known as HBO Max. But unlike poor, eternally unlucky Wile E. Coyote, it sounds like his first big movie might catch a break.
(Via THR)