How Warner Bros. Messed Up Their Deal With Aquaman and The Conjuring Director James Wan
Things have not been going great for Warner Bros. Discovery in recent months. In April, Discovery bought up Warner Bros. from AT&T, a purchase that left the resulting company tens of billions of dollars in debt. Since then, executives have gone on a cost-cutting spree that has hurt their relationship with Hollywood creatives as well as the audience, who have felt disappointed and betrayed by the radical moves the company has made. In order to save $3 billion toward its debt, Warners has lost about $20 billion in market value as the stock dropped like a rock.
Maybe it's no surprise, then, that filmmaker James Wan and his Atomic Monster production house ended up at Blumhouse, where Universal will distribute their new films. According to a story at The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. made no effort at all to hang on to Wan, despite his Conjuring movies being worth billions in box office revenue to the studio.
"Atomic Monster previously had a deal at Warners, where Wan is in postproduction on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," the report reads, in part. "His deal ran out in the spring and the studio made no overtures to keep him."
It is not clear from the report whether Warner Bros. took their eye off the ball, or whether they made a conscious choice not to pursue Wan for a renewal. Given the environment at Warners right now, either option feels like a possibility. Still, given the money Wan has brought in, it's a hard decision to swallow.
Wan's Aquaman was also the highest-grossing film in DC's shared superhero universe, bringing in over $1 billion. Besides Joker, Aquaman is the only DC movie to manage that feat since The Dark Knight Rises.
Wan was also once seen as a major part of DC's plans going forward; besides Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, he was attached as a producer, director, or both to Swamp Thing and The Trench. The latter, a horror spinoff from the Aquaman universe, died in development in early 2021. The former, a TV series for DC Universe and HBO Max, got a single season before being cancelled, reportedly due to cost-cutting reasons tied to local tax incentives where the show was being filmed. It turned out to be a modest ratings success on The CW, and Swamp Thing himself had a cameo in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but neither of those things led to more content featuring the characters.
Warner Bros. is still set to distribute upcoming sequels to The Nun and The Conjuring from Wan and Atomic Monster.