Things are looking so grim over at Warner Bros that you’re starting to see reports about David Zaslav leaning to make co-CEO of DC Studios Peter Safran the new head of Warners, replacing Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy.
A bombshell Variety report tackles the troubles brewing over at Warners, including those De Luca/Abdy rumors, but more pertinently is the internal chaos that Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” has been causing.
A top source, that’s said to be very “familiar” with “One Battle After Another,” confirmed that the film had been tested in at least three markets in recent months (actually, it's four). Regardless, it sounds like Warners is absolutely puzzled by this film:
A consistent note came up: audiences struggled “to root for” any of the characters, bringing up the age-old question about “likability” in commercial films […] DiCaprio has been praised for a “quirky” performance, according to the testing. A character played by Benicio del Toro scored highest of all, with one played by Sean Penn also indexing high
Sources inside Warner Bros. tell Variety that Anderson agreed to audience testing given the high budget of the film ($140M+). The same source also suggested DeLuca and Anderson were “fighting over the final cut of the film, which is running over 2.5 hours.”
Another source added that Anderson “voluntarily” trimmed between eight to 10 minutes from ‘One Battle’ after early screening feedback. Memo to Variety: It's actually more like 20; The first cut, which screened in January, ran 2 hours 50 minutes, and this past week, in Dallas, it was down to around 2 hours 30 minutes.
The report goes on to state that the film will need to gross — at least— $260M worldwide to break even. PTA’s most successful film (“There Will Be Blood”) only managed to make $76M worldwide. Sure, this latest one has Leonardo DiCaprio and is banking on a splashy rollout, in IMAX, no less, but it’s turned into the definition of a risk for Abdy and De Luca.
Listen, I don't blame Warners for freaking out over PTA’s very pricey film, they're coming off two consecutive bombs, “Mickey 17” and “Alto Knights,” but when you give an eccentric filmmaker like Anderson $140M to write and direct a Thomas Pynchon adaptation, then you get what you pay for.