J.J. Abrams has a ton of geek cred. He created interesting and strange geek series like Alias and LOST. He has made KOOL original movies like the monster Cloverfield trilogy. He has even played in the biggest geek universes of Star Trek and Star Wars as director and writer.
Now J.J. has struck an exclusive deal with WarnerMedia. He has signed a 5 year deal worth approximate $250 million for Bad Robot to work only with Warner after all of their prior commitments are finished with Disney and Paramount.
No new projects were announced as of yet but Warner revealed it will include video games and digital content. We suspect it will include several movies and probably some Warner streaming content.
My first thought was that J.J. has been brought in to fix the defunct DC Movie franchise. The problem is the franchise is not really defunct. The DC Extended Universe with the movies connecting appears to be dead for the moment. But DC hit pay dirt with Aquaman and SHAZAM! The Wonder Woman sequel is scheduled out for next year. DC movies are alive and well. They may not include Superman for some time. We will have a new Batman movie and actor coming soon. But if you are a fan of DC Comics, you don’t have to worry. I do suspect that Warner will have J.J. and Bad Robot work on one or more DC movies and/or streaming series.
I think Warner is doing this to shore things up for their streaming platforms. They want to compete directly with Disney+ but Disney has jump on the ball and not waiting for their competition. Warner has had some success with their DC Universe with the Titans and Doom Patrol. But they will need to keep cranking the series if they want to keep a piece of the streaming pie. It has been reported that Warner is looking at merging the DC Universe streaming into their Warner Streaming to make it more beefy and offer more to their subscribers.
It appears that J.J. turned down twice the money from Apple that he received from Warner Bros. Apple attempted to sign J.J. to an exclusive for their Apple TV Plus (gee that name sounds familiar). The group at Bad Robot were concerned with an exclusive deal with Apple compared to Warner. That speaks volumes both for where they viewed the future of Warner and Apple’s streaming service.
Stay Geeky!
