‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ Co-Director Takes a Swipe at Fired Warner Bros. Chiefs
A major era at Warner Bros. is ending. Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are out as the studio’s film chiefs ahead of Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros., which is expected to be finalized on Oct. 6.
Their run had plenty of highlights. They oversaw ‘Sinners,’ ‘A Minecraft Movie,’ ‘Weapons’ and ‘One Battle After Another,’ which won 11 Academy Awards. Even so, they were reportedly left out of the merged company, and Skydance CEO David Ellison called each of them separately on Friday to confirm it.
Not everyone in the industry is sorry to see them go. ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt‘ co-director Michael Kurinsky shared a Hollywood Reporter article about the pair’s “tense phone call” on Instagram. He asked Abdy whether it was like the one he got when she told him his film was canceled, then added, “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
To understand the dig, you have to go back to 2022. ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ was a Christmas-themed animated follow-up to 2020’s ‘Scoob!’ that was shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery after it completed production. It had been slated to premiere on HBO Max on December 22 of that year.
The cancellation made headlines because the movie was nearly done. It had a production budget of $40 million, and one co-writer said it was about 95% finished. Warner Bros. Discovery called the decision a cost-cutting move, and reports said the studio took a tax write-down in exchange for never releasing it.
Kurinsky has described how bruising it was. He told the Film Stories podcast that he learned the news from the trade press, and that the confirming phone call came about four hours later. He said he felt like “just a name on an agenda.”
The crew kept going anyway. Producer Tony Cervone said the team recorded the film’s score because the stage and musicians were already paid for, and the movie eventually wrapped production. ‘Batgirl’ was canceled alongside it, which made the fallout bigger.
The Hollywood Reporter piece that set off Kurinsky’s post describes a messy final stretch. De Luca began hearing months ago that he and Abdy were on the chopping block, with the rumor reportedly coming from Paramount co-chair Josh Greenstein, who denied it and blamed a bad game of telephone. The pair had also believed they were safe after an earlier meeting with Ellison.
Ellison’s own call was tense, according to TheWrap. He reportedly told them the merged companies carry heavy debt and need to restructure, with the combined entity expected to hold around $80 billion in total debt.
The studio’s movies will now be overseen by Paramount’s Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein. De Luca and Abdy are said to be considering what comes next, with Netflix mentioned as a possibility. Kurinsky, for one, seems unlikely to be among the people consoling them.
What do you think of Michael Kurinsky’s pointed message to the ousted Warner Bros. chiefs?
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