Headwaters

May 18th, the fifth day after the release of "Troy".

Robert Deen walked into the company with an expressionless face, nodding coldly to the employees greeting him on both sides, not saying much.

As one of the executives of Warner Bros' distribution department, he couldn't escape responsibility for the failure of "Troy".

He pushed open the door and entered the company's conference room.

Inside, he saw Barry Meyer sitting at the head of the conference table. Barry didn't seem to be affected by the recent unfavorable news and still appeared calm and composed. He smiled and gestured for Deen to sit down.

"President?"

Robert Deen was about to speak, but Barry interrupted him, "Now that everyone is here, let's get to it."

In the conference room, apart from these two, there were several other department executives.

"As for the publicity budget, we've stopped investing in it. All the major newspapers and media outlets are reporting negative news about the movie."

Well, they had initially agreed to allocate $50M for promotion, and they had spent over $20M upfront. But seeing that things weren't going well, the remaining $30M wouldn't be invested further.

Is this an attempt to salvage losses? That's why the media had turned against them. Even Warner Bros. had given up.

"What about shifting public opinion?"

"Brad and CAA are even more anxious than we are. They've already taken action," another executive reported.

"Well, since we've already lost this round, we can't afford to lose too much. Overseas, we need to release it as soon as possible, and the same goes for the offline market. The longer we delay, the worse the impact."

"Don't worry, our people are already working on it."

"Very well, that's settled. Additionally, inform Lyman that we need to plan for the "Million Dollar Baby" project."

"Cannes?"

"Yes," Barry had planned it well in advance. "We'll participate in a few film festivals first to build buzz, have a North American sneak preview at the end of December, smoothly build momentum for awards season, compete for Oscars, and finally have a large-scale public release."

This was a very common industry practice. As for why they chose Cannes, it was because of Lyman's background.

If he weren't French, they might have chosen the Venice Film Festival.

After some further discussion, the small meeting adjourned.

For a massive platform like Warner Bros., dealing with project failures was something they had plenty of experience with.

Moreover, even though Warner Bros. was the distributor of "Troy", the financing for the production came from various sources.

Wall Street investment banks, foundations, and even studios like B-Plan Pictures provided the bulk of the funding.

In terms of losses, they bore the brunt, and Warner Bros. was only responsible for the distribution channel and some time and effort.

Of course, the impact of the failed project was significant, but it wasn't as dire as they had imagined.

Distribution, as the upstream of the entire film industry, couldn't be summarized so simply.

Take this incident, for example.

Regardless of the final box office earnings or the amount invested in the project, the first party to compensate for the losses was Warner Bros., followed by other investors.

These distribution conditions were explicitly written into the distribution terms.

Even the projects that Lyman cooperated with Paramount and EuropaCorp were the same.

If the box office was $100M, $40M went to the theater chains, and the remaining $60M was first allocated to the distribution party before reaching the production side.

This was why sometimes a project might not appear profitable on the surface, but the distributor wouldn't incur losses. After all, distribution channels were investments in themselves, and not making a profit or even incurring a small loss was seen as a major loss from the distributor's perspective.

After all, release slots were limited. If you gave a movie a slot, other movies had to be pushed back. The lost revenue from movies that could have been slotted into that time frame had to be factored into the equation.

"Troy" was no exception.

Superficially, Warner Bros. had done its best to reduce expenses and had even halted the promised additional promotional budget. However, this was a somewhat reluctant approach.

In a market as lucrative as the summer blockbuster season, Warner Bros. had entered with high hopes but had failed to achieve significant box office results. Warner Bros. was disheartened by this outcome.

Yet, the deed was done, and this "failure" did not hurt Warner Bros. the most.

Indeed, distribution was a valuable resource, but when compared to the production companies facing even more catastrophic losses and the investors left in despair, Warner Bros. didn't seem to have it as bad.

They bore the least risk in production, and if the situation turned bleak, they still received the largest compensation. It couldn't help but appear somewhat domineering.

Unfortunately, this was the way Hollywood operated. Especially for a major player like Warner Bros., which had grown accustomed to the rule of "you shoulder the risk, while the profits gets shared," this was just business as usual.

Even with their in-house projects, Warner Bros. rarely took on the full production risk.

Why? Wasn't their working capital sufficient?

In reality, for a film company like Warner Bros., never losing money was more important than making a big profit.

They needed to maintain this situation, even producing the most favorable annual financial reports to reassure shareholders and stabilize the stock market.

So, shortly after the film's release, once they realized that it was hopeless based on the screening data and market forecasts, they pulled out faster than anyone else.

They were the first to abandon ship.

Even the scapegoat, the focal point for shifting public opinion, was initiated by others. They simply went with the flow.

Otherwise, whether it was the actors or the director, as long as they minimized Warner Bros.' presence and achieved their goal, it didn't matter who took the blame.

Sure enough, this time the actors had united to make the director the focus.

Each party had its own calculations, but Warner Bros. was stable.

In the entertainment industry, stars were different from directors. Such notoriety was something an actor who still relied on their public image for work couldn't afford.

Agencies like CAA had no choice either. If they could successfully minimize the negative impact, who would willingly spend money to divert attention elsewhere?

Did they think money grew on trees?

But if they didn't do this, the careers of lead actors like Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom would suffer even more significant losses. Moreover, as idol stars, they couldn't reestablish themselves through their acting skills like versatile actors could. It meant relying even more on the favor of the audience.

The upfront investment could only console themselves with the hope of greater returns in the future.

Of course, if they truly wanted to give up on someone with no value in development, even the talent agencies couldn't help.

Haven't you seen that Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and others had even more scandals? They were accused of faith issues, infidelity problems, third parties in relationships, and even touching things they shouldn't have. These were all news stories that, when placed on ordinary actors, were enough to be fatal or even directly end their careers. Yet, they were continuously suppressed and whitewashed.

For example, Angelina Jolie, who had been heavily criticized later in her career, turned to the "charity route" with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

She sent aid to the Middle East regularly, called for anti-violence and anti-war efforts. Look, did people still focus on her scandalous news?

There would always be people who were unaware and would forget.