The company attributed its red ink to its protracted battle with Warner Bros. over the release of "The Matrix Resurrections" and a push into independent production. Village Roadshow said a potential sale last year collapsed because of uncertainty surrounding the dispute.
  • xyzzy@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    The company may attribute their bankruptcy filing to the legal fight with WB in order to make itself look like the victim and deflect blame from itself, but the actual culprit was just plain spending too much money, to the point where they weren’t paying screenwriters. Village Roadshow took on a bunch of debt to finance this debacle:

    Former Sony executive Steve Mosko, who joined Village Roadshow in 2018 as chief executive, left this year. He had attempted to build Village Roadshow into an independent studio that produced its own movies and television shows.

    But the Mosko-led campaign to remake the company into a full-service studio proved costly and untimely.

    Village Roadshow put into development 99 feature films, 166 scripted television series and 67 unscripted series. Of those, six movies and seven television series went into production. “No film or television series that was produced was able to create a profit that could sustain the studio business,” Maib wrote.

    So Mosko cratered the company with a half-baked plan and then danced away without consequences. Variety says:

    Mosko, well-liked and deeply experienced, will have his pick of new corporate jobs. Some individuals close to his thinking said he may take a stab at producing on his own.

    Also note:

    Village Roadshow’s library assets generate about $50 million a year in revenue, according to Maib’s declaration.

    They literally would be better off if they had just done nothing.

  • P00ptart@lemmy.worldEnglish
    228·
    3 days ago

    Good. Between the matrix and joker, both have been useful for the far right to recruit.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      341·
      3 days ago

      I haven’t seen The Joker, but nothing in The Matrix says what the far right thinks/pretends to think it does.

      That a bunch of brainwashed wingnuts choose to use the central themes of resistance against forced conformity and oppression to justify checks notes forced conformity and oppression, is not the fault of the movie, much less a producer who probably had no narrative influence.

      • J-Bone@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        11·
        3 days ago

        I haven’t seen The Joker

        There is nothing in the first one that explicitly promotes right wing narratives.

        Haven’t seen the second one, but I am strongly confident that the same applies as well.

        • 108@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8·
          3 days ago

          I think it’s more like people thinking Patrick Bateman is the hero in American Psycho and not the villain. Not saying it makes sense. But here we are.