Last week DC Films got a new president, and this week there was another shakeup at Warner Bros. It was above the DC Films division, this time president Toby Emmerich was promoted to chairman and Blair Rich replaced Sue Kroll as marketing president. So what does this all mean?
The Wrap wrote an article breaking it down, and it sounds like great news. Warner Bros. is streamlining how they do things. Emmerich now has the power to greenlight movies himself, and has to answer to no one other than CEO Kevin Tsujihara. “Toby has green light, I have red light,” Tsujihara told The Wrap.
A source told The Wrap that former marketing president Sue Kroll “hated superhero movies”. Even if that’s true, I don’t think she let her personal tastes affect her work. Kroll was named Warner Bros. marketing president in 2008 and has done a great job with superhero movies ever since. Who could forget the awesome viral marketing for The Dark Knight?
This morning, Kroll responded to The Wrap’s report.
“I love superhero movies. I’ve always considered it an honor to market films that fans feel so passionately about. And I think our track record stands for itself,” Kroll said. “As for the ‘Justice League’ campaign, I stand behind everything we did. It was a strategic and creative campaign, and I am immensely proud of the work done by all of us.”
Finally, Tsujihara admitted that copying Disney is not the way to do things. Hopefully that means we don’t end up with more movies like Justice League, which was clearly Warner Bros.’ attempt at making a “Marvel movie”.
“Warner Bros needs to continue doing what it’s always done: producing the biggest, most diverse slate in the business,” Tsujihara said. “That’s what’s made us successful. We can’t do what Disney’s done. It’s worked really, really well for them, but it’s not who we are. We need to continue to create a balanced slate of all types of movies and all genres.”
SOURCE: The Wrap
