In the world of media, especially TV and movie media, if you have a respected name, you’re going to get “first dibs” on various things. That’s often why you see many major motion pictures try and have the “biggest name” directors on them so that they can potentially lure in people to watch them from wherever. Steven Spielberg, James Gunn, Christopher Nolan, Ava DuVernay and more come to mind. And also amongst those on that list is that of JJ Abrams.
JJ Abrams is of course famous for all sorts of properties, including being the co-creator and executive producer of Lost, the director of a trilogy of Star Trek films and two Star Wars films, and his company Bad Robot has made various other products. And in 2019, he made waves by moving Bad Robot to Warner Bros in order to make stuff exclusively for them, including a set of DC Comics properties.
All in all, it was a big deal, but fast forward three years, and the love is definitely not there anymore.
Because despite getting paid $250 million to bring stuff to Warner Bros, the newly merged Warner Bros Discovery is reportedly frustrated because…nothing has come out yet, at all. It also doesn’t help that Abrams has just announced that he’s making a Speed Racer series…for Apple. Oops.
And as for those DC Comics properties, Abrams claimed he was going to do a unique Constantine series (which allegedly caused the character to be written off the now canceled Legends of Tomorrow) and a series on Madame Xanadu. But…
“Abrams has laid claim to a number of DC characters but has yet to get anything on the air.”
And that is the problem, one that WB prior to the merger is VERY familiar with. Bringing in people to claim things…but not getting anything done.
So we might just see a departure in the future, and maybe a shuffling in terms of who gets to work on what.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
