Previously, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara let it be known at an investors meeting that the new Ben Affleck Batman would be a seasoned veteran, and now new details have become known about the direction of the DC movie universe.
Yahoo has a transcript of the investors meeting with Kevin Tsujihara being questioned by Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Jessica Reif. The transcript doesn't look to be all that well transcribed, but there seems to be enough present to understand.
Tsujihara lets it be known that multiple DC movies are being planned as he notes the basis of WB's 12-14 movies will have the DC characters as the foundation.
Then you have 12 to 14 pictures coming from Warner Bros. And I think the basis, foundation of those 12 to 14 pictures are going to be coming from DC Entertainment. We have Batman versus Superman coming out in ’15, but those are going to be in the coming months a lot of announcements regarding kind of the future movie, television, games and consumer product pieces that are going to be coming from DC.
Tsujihara continues with mention of Ben Affleck and the Batman Vs. Superman movie. Note: I believe "Jake" is supposed to be director Zack [Snyder], and the "15" mentioned is the year 2015, otherwise it would be read as "the next 15 movies," but Tsujihara just stated above 12-14. At least that is my reading of it.
We couldn’t be happier about the movie that Jake and with Chris Nolan’s help can be created. It was a total reboot of the Man of Steel or Superman and it really gives credibility to that character and Henry did a great job. It’s a perfect springboard to then move into next 15, we think Jake is going to be directing Batman and Superman. Batman, in the movie we haven’t titled it yet and we are really excited about the fact that we were able to convince Ben to play Batman. It is a perfect for the role and it’s going to be a Batman that you’ve absolutely never seen before, he’s kind of tired and kind of weary, he’s been doing this for a while and Ben is the exact perfect for the vision that Jake has for that character and the fact that you saw such a passionate response and that is really kind of a testament to the love that people have for this character and it’s really exciting to see kind of where this is going and exact vision of how he’s going to put that movie together. We think it’s going to be huge.
Interestingly enough, the source close to Warner Bros. that told us Bryan Cranston is cast as Lex Luthor also told us a lot is leading up to the Justice League movie. Cosmic Book News is also told that Bryan Cranston signed on for 6-10 movies with Ben Affleck signing a multi-picture deal as well, possibly as high as 13. We are told Warner Bros. wants to create a more connected world than what Marvel has done.
Tsujihara also states DC will be the focus of things related to video games and more.
And as you said it’s being driven – the new franchises that we are going to be zoning are going to be DC franchises. We think there is big opportunities to build off of what we are doing throughout the rest of the company in games as well.
And as I said, we are number one in – we are really well positioned for that transition on the home entertainment side and with the DC pushing, if you are in consumer products and games we think there is opportunities there as well. So we are able to get some margin expansion also through the digital initiatives and continuing to look for ways to be more efficient and we are very confident that we can grow this business going forward.
