Warner Bros Discovery CEO Blames Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League For Poor Financial Peformance

It looks like Warner Bros. didn’t do as well financially as they were expecting to during the first portion of the year and, according to statements made by CEO David Zaslav during the most recent financial call, part of the blame falls on the “disappointing” release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

It’s worth noting that during the presentation, Zaslav was discussing the Studios division, not just Warner Bros Games. Included in this division are also Warner Bros Pictures, DC, Warner Bros Television Group, and New Line Cinema. During the presentation, Zaslav reiterated a point from when the company was discussing its plans to lean into games as a live service, where they stated the various IPs the company owns and plans to make more use of in the future. Among these are Harry Potter and DC.

In the case of Suicide Squad, Zaslav compares its performance to Hogwarts Legacy. The Harry Potter game did rather well, while Suicide Squad did not. CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels backed Zaslav on this stating that the difference between the two games resulted in a “$200 million impact” before interest, taxes, and the like.

The Suicide Squad game probably could have done better and people were excited about it at one time, but development was delayed, what they showed before launch wasn’t great, and people didn’t react well to the live service push.