Skydance Inherited Massive Flops From Warner Bros. Deal - And Things Could Get Worse

Warner Bros.

There's a new mega-studio in Hollywood, and it's got a lot to prove. The Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount merger was recently made official, with the new company named Skydance. This $111 billion deal has been met with intense scrutiny, in no small part because Skydance is now saddled with billions of dollars in debt. So, to make all this look even remotely tenable for the foreseeable future, that means Warner Bros. has to deliver at the box office.

Unfortunately, the new owners at Skydance inherited a string of massive flops ... and it may get worse before it gets better.

Indeed, a report from Page Six has examined Warner Bros.' ex-film bosses Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy's "free spending" ways. Recall that Warner Bros. set a huge box office record in 2025, with six movies in a row earning at least $40 million on opening weekend. But this year has not been kind to the studio, with this report stating that Warner Bros.' 2026 slate will lose around $800 million. Can it really be that bad? Yes, it can.

Here's a full breakdown of Warner Bros.' 2026 at the box office, movie by movie:

• "Wuthering Heights" — $80 million budget/$241 million worldwide

• "The Bride!" — $90 million budget/$24 million worldwide

• "They Will Kill You" — $10 million budget/$19 million worldwide

• "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" — $22 million budget/$90 million worldwide

• "Mortal Kombat II" — $80 million budget/$129 million worldwide

• "Supergirl" — $170 million budget/$126 million worldwide

• "Evil Dead Burn" — $20 million budget/$72 million worldwide

• "The End of Oak Street" — $90 million budget/$121 million worldwide

• "Practical Magic 2" — $75 million budget/$106 million worldwide

• "Digger" — $180 million budget/$49 million worldwide

• "Clayface" — $44 million budget/$84 million worldwide (still in theaters)

Warner Bros.

I previously broke down how movie box office actually works. Basically, without getting too far into the weeds, theaters keep around half of all money from ticket sales, and budget figures don't include marketing expenses. Taking that into account, we can see that only "Wuthering Heights," "Lee Cronin's The Mummy," "Evil Dead Rise," and "Clayface" will go down as hits for Warner Bros. this year, when all's said and done. And some of those are rather modest successes at best.

The rest of the slate is either filled with big disappointments or crushing flops. Tom Cruise's "Digger" will lose a lot of money at the box office, potentially as much as $250 million. That's just the tip of the iceberg, too. "The Bride!" also lost a fortune, while "Supergirl" flopped in a rather terrible fashion. Movies that were expected to be blockbuster hits instead became shipwrecks, with the debris washing up on the rocks. It's been bad.

The validity of that $800 million figure is somewhat irrelevant. It's crystal clear that WB's 2026 slate, overall, is going to lose a lot of money. Even if movies like "They Will Kill You" eventually made money on VOD/streaming, Skydance needs big hits. What it's gotten is a string of disastrous flops.

Even "One Battle After Another" was still a box office bomb ($213 million worldwide/$170 million budget) despite winning Best Picture at the Oscars. This Page Six report estimates it lost around $75 million. The Oscar helps, but probably not quite that much. Hence, Skydance needs Warner Bros. to deliver at the box office more than ever, and the hope is that 2027 will deliver green pastures. But that's far from a sure thing at this juncture.

Warner Bros.

On paper, there are some surefire bets on Warner Bros.' upcoming slate in 2027. 2024's "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" became the highest-grossing "Godzilla" movie ever, so it stands to reason that its sequel, "Godzilla x Kong: Supernova," will be a hit as well. But Warner Bros. will have to split that revenue with Legendary, so that's a somewhat qualified winner.

There's also the studio's much-anticipated return to Middle Earth. Even though Peter Jackson isn't directing "The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum," it has a lot of appeal and revives a multi-billion-dollar global franchise. Optimistically, that should pan out pretty well, too, though how well remains to be seen. On top of that, there's the "Minecraft Movie" sequel, James Gunn's "Superman" follow-up "Man of Tomorrow," and "The Conjuring: First Communion," the latter of which ought to deliver. Remember, only six horror movie franchises have made over $1 billion at the box office, and The Conjuring Universe is one of them.

Outside of that? It gets far more murky. Director J.J. Abrams' "The Great Beyond" was pushed back to 2027, presumably because WB wanted an IMAX release. It's expensive and far from a sure thing. Even riskier is the new Nancy Meyers rom-com tentatively titled "Paris Paramount," which reportedly cost a dizzying $120 million. As for Sam Esmail's $60 million "Panic Carefully" and the CGI/live-action hybrid movie "Animal Friends?" They're big question marks.

For seemingly every sure thing on WB's 2027 slate, then, there's a real risk. Skydance film bosses Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg have a lot of decisions to make. For now, though, It's be less about the movies they want to make and more about how they're going to handle all the dicey prospects they've inherited.