Warner Bros. Discovery Set to Eliminate Employees in Film Division After Fiery Earnings Call

The cost-cutting crusade at Warner Bros. Discovery is set to continue, and now the Warner Bros. film division appears to be the next part of the company caught in the crosshairs. Following Thursday’s fiery quarterly earnings call, led by CEO David Zaslav, reports surfaced of a new round of cuts coming to Warner Bros. The company has increased its cost-cutting goal to $3.5 billion, hoping to continue digging out of its $50 billion in debt. 

According to Bloomberg, Warner Bros. Discovery will be cutting between 5% and 10% of the staff at Warner Bros. Pictures, with additional cuts planned for the home entertainment division later on. The cuts will effect both distribution and marketing at Warner Bros. In total, 20-30 employees are expected to be informed of their cuts by the end of November. 

There have been several rounds of layoffs at Warner Bros. Discovery since Zaslav took over after the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger. The condensing of the company’s animation efforts has been a massive point of concern for folks throughout the industry, as has WBD’s trend of removing streaming titles in order to cut taxes. Multiple HBO Max original programs, including Close Enough, were removed from the streaming platform and there doesn’t seem to be any intention on putting them back at any point. 

Warner Bros. Discovery has also been cancelling projects left and right, regardless of what stage of development or production they are in. Batgirl had a price tag of around $90 million and was nearly finished when Warner Bros. Discovery opted to pull the plug on the entire project. The company has made it clear that it doesn’t intend on spending large amounts on streaming titles, and executives felt as though Batgirl was too small for a theatrical release. That left the film without a place under this new regime and they axed it.

Scoob!: Holiday Haunt was another title that got canned near the end of its production, and it seemed to be even further along than Batgirl. Warner Bros. Discovery has made it clear that nothing and no one is safe if a little money can be saved.