Many people in Hollywood have taken jabs at WB for shelving Batgirl and other decisions that have come up since the company’s major shakeup. John Oliver swiped at Warner Bros Discovery on his HBO series Last Week Tonight, making a reference to the DC film that got scrapped from releasing on streaming or in theaters.
During a segment on his show, John Oliver compared Warner Bros Discovery to the U.S. government letting monkeypox vaccines expire.
“We let the vaccine sit unused on a shelf in our reserves, like an expired Chobani or a $90 million movie on HBO Max,” he said. “Hi there, new business daddy seems like you’re doing a really great job. I do get the vague sense that you’re burning down my network for the insurance money, but I’m sure that will all pass.”
Another person who has spoken about the situation with Batgirl was recently Kevin Smith, who found it “baffling.” While not speaking outright, Kevin Feige, James Gunn, and Edgar Wright reached out to the directing duo, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, to give them support for their canceled movie.
John Oliver slams Warner Bros Discovery
John Oliver hammered Warner Bros Discovery after the company made major controversial decisions. Notably, it shelved Batgirl and a sequel to Scoob!, along with taking movies that debuted on HBO Max months ago off the platform. The company is also combining Discovery+ and HBO Max next summer into a single platform, making many questions about how that will affect the content as Max has become synonymous with its high-quality scripted shows like Game of Thrones and Succession.
It does make for a bold move to call out our parent company like this, but the host calling out his parent company is nothing new for him. The previous parent company, AT&T, was slammed by the host for its right-wing connections, most notably with cable network One America News. He had also called out AT&T over its silence on Texas’ abortion ban and its time as a monopoly.
Deadline reached out to John Oliver, who said Warner Bros Discovery can take the “Victorian marriage” approach from AT&T and “leave us the f— alone.” He also said that his new parent company has not reached out, but if it did, he would send that email “straight to junk.”
