Warner Bros. Discovery Selling Vast Library of Movie Soundtracks in Latest Money-Making Move

The business decisions of Warner Bros. Discovery have been in the spotlight in recent months, as the company aims to trim a significant amount of debt from its budget. Thus far, that has included a lot of cancelling and scrapping movies and TV shows (some of which were in the middle of or mostly done with production), and even removing some existing titles from its HBO Max streaming service. According to a new report from the Financial Times, the company's latest strategy includes another facet of their library — music. Warner Bros. Discovery is reportedly exploring a sale of its music library, including the copyrights to various movie soundtracks. 

While WarnerMedia previously sold its music division in the early 2000s, it retained copyrights to soundtracks like The Wizard of Oz and Westworld. The library could reportedly be valued at more than $1 billion. 

Why is HBO Max cancelling so many shows?

This news comes amid a string of new behind-the-scenes changes at HBO Max, following the recent merger of its new parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. These patterns began with the cancellation of Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt back in August of 2022. Both films, which were already completed and were set to debut on HBO Max, were later reported to be canned for the sake of tax write-downswhich will seemingly be recorded in Q3 of 2022. In the days since, Warner Bros. Discovery removed six HBO Max-exclusive movies from their streaming platform, as well as a number of fan-favorite animated series. Anonymous sources alleged in August of last year that no existing show is safe from potentially being cancelled or written off, with Warner Bros. Discovery now making decisions on a case-by-case basis.

"Looking at the wide breadth of all the shows that were taken off of the service, it's hard to even see a throughline between them," OK K.O.: Let's Be Heroes! creator Ian Jones-Quartey said in an interview last year. "We're still just not sure why some things were taken off and other things weren't. The whole thing is just very confusing, and there hasn't been much outreach to anybody."

What do you think of Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly selling its soundtrack library? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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