Warner Bros. Believes PTA's âOne Battle After Another' Will Gross $180M Domestically
Contrary to what you might think, Iâm not totally against what David Zaslav is doing over at Warner Bros. Sure, itâs wrong to not release already-completed films (âCoyote vs Acmeâ), but on the bright side, Zaslav is one of the very few, if not the only, studio exec willing to dish out hundreds of millions of dollars on auteur-driven passion projects. Who else is doing that? Thatâs right, absolutely nobody. Zaslavâs losses are our gains.
Bloomberg now has a report describing Zaslavâs love for auteur-driven cinema, and how this infatuation for the medium might sadly, and quite epically, backfire on him in 2025.
Itâs not just âJoker: Folie a Deux, which cost $200M and bombed in 2024. Warner Bros has a bunch of other pricey auteur-driven films coming out, including Maggie Gyllenhaalâs âThe Brideâ ($100M), Bong Joon-hoâs âMickey 17â ($150M), Ryan Cooglerâs âSinnersâ ($100M) David Robert Mitchellsâ âFlowervale Streetâ ($90M), and Paul Thomas Andersonâs âOne Battle After Anotherâ ($140M).
With that said, Zaslav is starting to panic. Do you blame him? The Bloomberg report has him condemning Warner Bros film heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy in a meeting after âFolie a Deuxâ flopped on opening weekend. It doesnât that almost all of the titles I just mentioned had their original budgets balloon during production.
The report goes on to state that, despite the Zaslav lashing, De Luca and Abdy are optimistic about their 2025 slate. In fact, internally, and with the âstar powerâ of Leonardo DiCaprio at the helm, they are forecasting that Paul Thomas Andersonâs âOne Battle After Anotherâ will earn $180M domestically.
PTAâs most successful film (âThere Will Be Bloodâ) only managed to make $76M worldwide. Sure, this latest one has DiCaprio â who is said to have earned $20M to star â and is banking on a splashy rollout, in IMAX, no less, but itâs turned into the definition of a RISK. Thereâs also zero chance it keeps that August release date.
Regardless, what an enormous gamble this was for Warners, especially given that the most successful film of PTAâs career (âThere Will Be Bloodâ) only managed to earn $76M worldwide. Sure, this latest one has DiCaprio but $180M might be stretching it. I hope Iâm wrong. More recently, Warner executives were telling The Wall Street Journal that âDiCaprioâs box-office track record justifies the budget for Andersonâs latestâ.
Regardless, the real winner here is PTA who somehow managed to convince Warner Bros to shell out this much money for his new film. No matter how much this film makes, itâs damn-near miraculous he got the greenlight on a $140M+ Thomas Pynchon adaptation.