Legendary Entertainment’s contract with Warner Bros. just expired, and the company is reportedly considering leaving its on-again, off-again residence there.
There are rumors that Sony and Paramount are competing, with the former being the favorite. Additionally, Legendary, which was previously at Warner and Universal, has a new contract on the table with Warner Bros.
Representatives at Warner Bros. and Legendary declined to comment.
During the whole Jason Kilar-led Project Popcorn, which put Dune in cinemas and on HBO Max, there was a kerfuffle with Warners. Kilar is no longer present because the studio has subsequently committed to Dune: Part Two, which is presently filming in Jordan. Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Dune, two films from the Legendary label, had the greatest global box office takings during the WarnerMedia-HBO Max day-and-date experiment in 2017. These films took in $386.6M and $401.8M, respectively. Dune received a nomination for Best Picture and went on to win six Oscars.
David Zaslav, the CEO, has made a very visible commitment to theater. However, he has also been cutting agreements and projects with well-known producers, such as J.J. Abrams, so having some dialogues with outside parties made sense because the Warner deal has to be renegotiated.
The Godzilla-Kong monsterverse and Christmas Story Christmas on HBO Max are two further legendary films at Warners.
In 2014, Legendary signed a five-year contract with Universal. Legendary’s decision to transfer Detective Pikachu to Warner Bros. in 2018 was a sign that the finance producer’s contract with Uni was about to expire. One of the six films that Warner Bros co-financed and released in a non-exclusive deal with Legendary was Detective Pikachu, which brought in $433.2M.
