Warner Bros. Has Its Most Exciting Movie Slate in Years, but Will Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy Survive to Deliver It?

It was miraculous, really.

Imagine it – a 10:30 a.m. screening on an overcast Wednesday, charcoal-colored clouds dappling the sky. A handful of film journalists had been summoned to an Imax-equipped multiplex in the valley to watch Ryan Coogler’s new period vampire movie “Sinners.” And throughout the movie, which runs more than two hours (including a pair of post-credits scenes), there were multiple applause breaks. It was like being at a new “Avengers” movie, only it was an R-rated, blood-splattered original thriller set in the Jim Crow-era South and featuring a pair of performances by Coogler regular Michael B. Jordan as morally nebulous twins who return to their backwoods hometown to open a rollicking juke joint.

The unexpectedly uproarious “Sinners” screening cemented the fact that Warner Bros. is unleashing its boldest slate in years, as studio heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy finally see the fruits of their labor three years after after being installed with gambles on pricey films from auteur favorites like Coogler, Paul Thomas Anderson and Bong Joon-ho. But whether De Luca and Abdy, whose contracts expire in 2026 and who are set to spotlight their slate at CinemaCon on Tuesday, will stick around Warner Bros. long enough to see their vision through is now top of mind. Reports swirled over the weekend that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has been meeting with candidates to replace them, with DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran being floated for the position.

A WBD representative stressed that the meetings were “informal” and an individual close to Zaslav told TheWrap that he has not made any final decisions.

But in the wake of “Joker: Folie a Deux” grossing just $200 million (vs. the first film’s $1 billion) and getting shellacked by critics last fall, and as Bong’s Robert Pattinson-fronted “Mickey 17” crests $121 million worldwide on a $118 million budget, De Luca and Abdy are in the hot seat. They are hoping that general audiences will respond to “Sinners” and the rest of their ambitious slate with the same enthusiasm that permeated that press screening.

Their fate on the eve of CinemaCon is the industry’s favorite FOMO.

“Zaslav is not patient once he turns,” a source familiar with Warner Bros. and Zaslav told TheWrap. “But it would be a shame to punish them for taking big creative swings.”

“It’s one thing to make ultra expensive auteur-driven films for MGM for the purposes of making a sale of the studio more attractive for a potential buyer, but it’s another for the largest and arguably most commercial studio in the business like Warner Bros.,” a top agent said, nodding to De Luca and Abdy’s tenure at MGM that included films like “Licorice Pizza” and “House of Gucci.”

“Their days are numbered,” the agent concluded.

***

Before this latest round of gossip, De Luca and Abdy were more likely to be lauded for putting their weight behind big, original films from singular filmmakers.

“For movie fans, this is a very eclectic and dynamic slate of films that is catnip to any movie lover worth their salt. The studio should be credited with putting together a dream lineup of films that boasts quality and appeal to audiences around the globe,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, said.

In addition to “Sinners,” the duo’s 2025 slate includes Joseph Kosinski’s Brad Pitt-led racing movie “F1,” an Apple original that WB is distributing in June; the really-for-real beginning of its new DC Universe with James Gunn’s “Superman” in July; Zach Cregger’s hotly anticipated “Barbarian” follow-up, the sprawling “Weapons” in August; and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which finally unites him with Leonardo DiCaprio, in September.

There are some keep-the-lights-on movies in there, too – kid-skewing “A Minecraft Movie” opens Friday and there are sequels to R-rated hits “Final Destination,” “The Conjuring” and “Mortal Kombat” debuting theatrically in a bid to diversify the slate. It’s not all auteur cinema.

Working in Abdy and De Luca’s favor is the fact that other executives like them as much as the filmmakers who are working for them. It was Abdy and De Luca who mended the relationship with Legendary after the debacle of 2021’s Project Popcorn, former Warner Media chief Jason Kilar’s initiative to send every new Warner Bros. movie to theaters and the streaming platform (then known as HBO Max) simultaneously. Legendary and Warner Bros. released two of last year’s biggest hits – “Dune: Part Two” ($711 million worldwide) and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” ($571 million worldwide, the biggest success of the recent “Godzilla” movies) and have teamed again on this week’s “A Minecraft Movie” and “Animal Friends,” a live-action/animated hybrid set for release this fall.

Abdy and De Luca also helped secure Tom Cruise, who signed a non-exclusive pact with Warner Bros. and whose first project with them, from two-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, premieres in 2026. And they won the bidding war for Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” adaptation starring Margot Robbie, which opens next year and was highly coveted by other studios.

Blank check, cashed

Can the duo’s big 2025 bet pay off? On paper, their moves reflect refined taste and a whole lot of trust in singular filmmakers.

After Bong Joon-ho swept the Oscars with his claustrophobic South Korean thriller “Parasite,” he signed on to do “Mickey 17,” based on a novel by Edward Ashton, for Warner Bros. The filmmaker hired movie stars like Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo, and set out to tell the story of the titular “expendable” (Pattinson), hired to aid a voyage to colonize a wintery planet. Every time Mickey dies, he is reprinted anew.

With “Mickey 17,” Bong was working through some of his favorite themes — the inherent soullessness of unchecked Capitalism, indigenous and animal rights, what makes us human — and housed those themes inside a giant, $118 million-budgeted sci-fi extravaganza, which was given the green light by a previous regime but overseen by Abdy and De Luca. It was the ultimate blank check movie, and it will cost Warner Bros. dearly, with some estimates putting the loss at between $75 and $80 million. Still, the film’s fans are grateful.

Following “Minecraft,” a film that is nakedly commercial, “Sinners” will be the studio’s next challenge. It’s a $90 million period horror movie whose rights revert back to Coogler after 25 years, meaning that after a quarter-of-a-century, the studio will no longer own the rights to the film. That was a deal-breaker for Coogler and put off some would-be buyers, but Abdy and De Luca acquiesced.

While the R-rated film is tracking for a $40 million opening, it could have legs if word of mouth is positive. Dergarabedian cited the 30 million views that the trailers for “Sinners” have on YouTube and offered a math equation: “Horror + great director and star can = box office and critical success a la ‘Get Out.’”

“F1,” which reunites Kosinski with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the team behind the $1 billion-grossing, Oscar-winning “Top Gun: Maverick,” has benefitted from a similarly smart marketing campaign that entices both movie fans and racing enthusiasts, and Warner Bros. and Apple are surely hoping for “Top Gun: Maverick”-sized success with a big large-format release this summer.

The big PTA bet

Then there’s “One Battle After Another,” whose out-of-control trailer just dropped and on which much is riding for Abdy and De Luca. The budget, which is close to $140 million according to some, is the largest ever for Paul Thomas Anderson, whose highest grossing film is “There Will Be Blood,” a modern masterpiece that still only made $76 million at the box office.

“One Battle After Another” is full of action and car chases and has Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, at its center. It looks like arguably the most commercial movie that Anderson has ever directed, with a starry, A-list cast to entice reticent moviegoers. But it also looks esoteric, telling the story of a group of ex-revolutionaries. At that price point, it’s a gamble. But Abdy and De Luca have worked with Anderson before; De Luca greenlit his early films at New Line Cinema and together they worked on “Licorice Pizza” when Abdy and De Luca were at MGM.

The movie was initially scheduled to debut in early August, a slot that will now be occupied by “Weapons.” There are a number of potential festivals where “One Battle After Another” could make its splashy debut — Venice seems like a fitting launch. It could be a true crossover critical-to-commercial hit, especially with DiCaprio in the lead, and the trailer has already amassed over 7.5 million views. A new Paul Thomas Anderson movie is usually an event for film nerds. This time around, might it be a genuine event for everybody?

And “Weapons,” about a town that wakes up one day to find that all of its children are missing, looks like it will be a hit regardless. Not only is it building on the momentum of writer/director Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian,” a sleeper hit that became a full-on cult phenomena, but it cost less than $40 million to produce, meaning the distance between the movie opening and becoming a hit is much shorter. With a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong and Amy Madigan, “Weapons” has all the makings of a horror success.

“Superman” – an update on the classic DC superhero, who was last portrayed by Henry Cavill in several films – seems, on paper, a sure bet and underlines a bold approach from the film studio. Written and directed by James Gunn, who is also running DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, it’s the rare movie that serves as both a big-budget studio film and the entry point to an entirely new universe of interconnected stories. The last time this was realistically attempted was Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which followed Disney’s $4 billion acquisition of George Lucas’ original company and wound up making $2 billion globally. All signs point to “Superman” being a product of Gunn’s singular style, which paid off at Marvel with “Guardians of the Galaxy.” When it comes to Warner Bros.’ slate, even the blockbusters are bespoke.

It’s unclear what the make-or-break movie for Abdy and De Luca’s regime is. Some suggest that “Sinners,” could gain momentum from word-of-mouth (as the press screening indicates) and offer them a stay of execution. But others point to “One Battle After Another” as the final war they’ve got to win. PTA’s pricey film looks to be following the playbook of “Joker: Folie à Deux” – splashy fall festival premiere followed by commercial release. Abdy and De Luca, who oversaw the “Joker” sequel’s production, are clearly hoping for a different result.

Umberto Gonzalez and Jeremy Fuster contributed to this report.

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