Warner Bros. Discovery is poised to lose its most potent production company partner for theatrical hits, Legendary Entertainment.
Legendary has produced many of Warner Bros. Pictures' biggest titles over the past two decades, including 300, The Dark Knight, The Hangover and Inception, and more recently Godzilla vs. King Kong and Dune.
As first reported by The Ankler and confirmed by other showbiz trades, Legendary's deal with WBD is up, and the movie financier is in talks to possibly take its talents to Sony or Paramount.
WBD is reportedly in talks with Legendary about a possible re-up, too. And neither WBD or Legendary has commented, officially anyway.
Is this a sign of the Hollywood creative community's unease with the new WBD management team, which has slashed HBO projects -- most notably, a finished $90 million superhero movie, Batgirl, produced by DC Entertainment?
Tough to say.
Christopher Nolan, one of the more notable filmmakers in the Legendary fold, was notably at odds with the pre-merger parent company WarnerMedia during the height of the COVID pandemic, when conglomerate CEO Jason Kilar elected to take Nolan's latest film, Tenet, and release it day-and-date on streaming service HBO Max and the mostly evacuated theatrical market.
Kilar, of course, was 86'd upon the closure of the Warner-Discovery merger earlier this year, and newly installed WBD chief executive David Zaslav has renewed the company's strident vows to theatrical releasing.
Meanwhile, the two Legendary titles that went day and date last year for WarnerMedia, Godzilla vs. King Kong and Dune, didn't perform badly, given the largely shuttered circumstances of the theatrical market.
Notably, Legendary has worked with other studios for stretches before, including a stretch between 2014 - 2018 when it flew the Universal Pictures flag.
