Yahoo Finance Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Releases Trailer for Barbie
Warner Bros. Discovery WBD released the first official trailer for Barbie on Dec 16. It also announced that the movie will premiere on Jul 21, 2023, in theatres.
After 40 computer-animated films, Mattel’s MAT LuckyChap Entertainment Mattel Films is producing its first live-action film adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Along with them, the movie casts Will Ferrell, Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon, Shang-Chi's Simu Liu, America Ferrera and more, making it a star-studded movie.
Mattel’s Barbie doll has been very cherished, especially among young girls, with 16.79 billion worldwide sales in 2021, per Statista. The animated movies too have shown the same excitement. Releases like Barbie In Nutcracker, Barbie of Swan Lake, Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, Barbie As Rapunzel, and Barbie As The Princess and The Pauper have been ranked as the five best Barbie movies, per Collider.
This first live film is expected to perform even better than the above-mentioned ones, as it will not just gain traction from kids but adults as well. Given the powerful star cast, the movie has the potential to keep viewers hooked.
However, it is to be noted that Barbie will have to face competition from Walt Disney’s DIS Toy Story 5, which is scheduled to release on Jun 16, 2023. Toy Story has been a successful expansion of Disney, with its latest movie Lightyear making around $22 million at the global box office.
Warner Bros. Discovery to Benefit From Its Strong Slate of Movies
Warner Bros. Discovery has been trying to aid the company’s growth by strengthening its content portfolio. Beside Barbie, it has announced the release of films like Killer Vacation, which is a comedy action thriller casting John Cena and Jason Momoa, and The Flash, which has Ezra Miller. The Flash is considered to have a storyline very different from that of Nexstar Media’s NXST CW series of the same name, which builds anticipation among people.
It is also set to release the horror sequel The Nun 2 after the success of its first part, The Nun, which made $36 million at the global box office. The trend is likely to continue for the upcoming movie.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Price and Consensus
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Quote
Adding to this, Warner Bros. Discovery has scheduled the release of Joker: Folie à Deux on Oct 4, 2024, which is an American musical psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips. Though the movie will not aid the company’s top line in the near future, it speaks of the efforts that the company is taking to provide its audience with broad genres of movies.
The news of these upcoming releases comes on a relieving note for Warner Bros. Discovery’s audience amid its massive slashing of content.
Ever since the merger of Warner Media and Discovery, Warner Bros. Discovery, which currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), is facing heavy debt and losses. As a result, it has been cutting costs by cancelling high-budget movies like Batgirl, Wonder Woman 3 and Man of Steel 2.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The impacts of this has been seen in its shares, which have declined 57.9% year to date compared with the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector's 36.4% fall.
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