Village Roadshow has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. for breach of contract due to the simultaneous release of the new Matrix in theaters and HBO Max. In the lawsuit, the company that is a co-producer in the franchise, emphasizes that it was never asked about this decision and that it suffered great financial loss.
“The only reason Warner Bros. moved the release of the new Matrix from 2022 to 2021 was because of its desperation to bring subscribers to HBO Max from a movie it knew would be a blockbuster. “He also knew that this move would curb its box office performance and deprive the Village Roadshow of the possibility of generating revenue, something that would benefit the WB, especially if the film was released in theaters in 2022,” the lawsuit states.
The important point with the dates, is that if the film was released in cinemas in the current year, then its premiere would take place exclusively in cinemas. Recall that the decision of Warner Bros. to simultaneously release the films on HBO Max concerned only those that premiered in 2021.
“This is the Village Roadshow’s trivial attempt to evade its financial obligations under the contract that we demanded. “We have no doubt that the decision will be in our favor,” Warner Bros. said in its response. The two companies shared the percentage of funding for the film, but Village has not yet given the money as it waited to see if the different release strategy would affect box office performance.
The box office
And of course not only did it affect her, but Matrix Resurrections is considered a commercial failure, as it brought in just $ 37 million in America and about $ 160 million worldwide, with the first three films grossing $ 1.8 billion.
Village also claims that unlike other Warner Bros. associates who agreed to receive large financial rewards for the simultaneous release of their HBO Max projects, this did not happen in its own case. Typical examples of such cases were Patti Jenkins and Gal Gadid for the second Wonder Woman and Legendary for Dune.
The opposite
However, the rivalry between the two companies seems to have deeper roots. The lawsuit alleges that Warner refused to recognize the Village Roadshow in Wonka as a partner, as it does not consider it a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel or anything related to Edge of Tomorrow, although they also had 50-50 production rights.
Warner Bros.’s move to make simultaneous premieres of all 2021 films had drawn a backlash from Christopher Nolan, a longtime partner at the time, who said: “Some of the greatest creators and most important actors of our time have gone for “sleeping one night thinking they were working for the best movie studio and when they woke up they found out they were working for the worst streaming service.”
Nolan stopped working with Warner after all this and his new film about the life of Robert Oppenheimer will be released by Universal. For this year, Warner is pursuing a different strategy and its films are being released exclusively in theaters and on HBO Max 45 days later.
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