Warner Bros. Discovery Negotiates Selling Its Music Legacy for $500 Million–What's at Stake?

Warner Bros. Discovery has been furiously cutting projects and teams to settle their billion dollars worth of debt accumulated over the years. From shelving Batgirlalmost a year ago to the company’s most recent series of executive layoffs at TCM, WBD CEO David Zaslav has become Hollywood’s Big Bad with his weapon of choice being an ax.

Now, three sources confirmed to Variety that WBD is negotiating the sale of half of the storied Warner studio’s film and TV music-publishing assets for approximately $500 million.

One source told Variety that the rights to “slightly less than half” of the WBD catalog are likely to go to a major label like Sony. The catalog is rumored to include music from Purple Rain, Evita, Sweeney Todd, Rent, and several Batman films. With a $500 million price tag, we are sure that many iconic songs from WBD films are included in the deal.

Right now, we won't know what assets are on the table until the deal is made.

Why is WBD Selling Their Film and TV Music Assets?

Some of Variety’s sources believe that many of the company’s assets are more than half a century old, and are “declining” in value. It seems that Zaslav is more than eager to sell anything that doesn’t produce a meaningful profit.

The deal would also help the company as the WGA strike continues to halt productions, costing the studios unwilling to strike a deal approximately $30 million a day (according to Deadline). Rather than pay writers a fair wage, Zaslav is laying off long-time employees, axing more projects, and, now, selling catalogs of film and TV music publishing assets.

The landscape of film and TV is changing, and Zaslav seems to have Hollywood’s film and TV industry in his hands.

Is the goal to reduce the $49.5 billion debt worth ruining a legacy studio's status in the industry, or will it not make that big of a difference?

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Source: Variety