Warner Bros CEO says ‘disappointing’ Suicide Squad release ‘overshadowed’ its overall Studios financials

The CEO and president of Warner Bros Discovery has singled out Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as the reason for underwhelming Q1 results for its entire Studios division.

During a financial presentation, David Zaslav said the Studios division – which includes Warner Bros Pictures, DC, Warner Bros Television Group, Warner Bros Games and New Line Cinema – saw a decrease in revenues compared to the previous year.

Zaslav said this was mainly down to the difference between the successful release of Hogwarts Legacy last year and the “disappointing” release of the Suicide Squad game.

“Warner Bros Discovery’s great storytelling IP, including Hary Potter, Lord of the Rings, Superman and many other parts of the DC Universe are largely underused,” Zaslav said.

“We are hard at work fixing that. It’s a core value and a key advantage for us. We have the characters and the stories people love and yearn for everywhere in the world, in every language.

“Unfortunately, the studio’s Q1 financials were overshadowed by the tough [comparison] at Games, following the great performance of Hogwarts Legacy last year, and the disappointing release of Suicide Squad in Q1 in our gaming group.”

Zaslav’s comments were later echoed by Warner Bros Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who said the difference between both games’ releases had led to “a $200 million impact to EBIDTA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation] during the first quarter”.

The game’s release was less than ideal, with Wiedenfels saying in February’s financial briefing that its sales had “fallen short” of the company’s expectations.

“This year, Suicide Squad, one of our key video game releases in 2024, has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter,” he noted at the time, “setting our games business up for a tough year-over-year comp in Q1.”

As the latest title from the studio behind the celebrated Batman Arkham franchise, Suicide Squad was once one of the industry’s most highly anticipated games, but enthusiasm for it seemingly waned during a protracted development cycle which included some underwhelming pre-release showings and a backlash to its live service elements.

The game released to a mixed critical reception, earning it scores of 60 (consoles) and 63 (PC) on review aggregation site Metacritic, while its launch was negatively impacted by server issues and an auto-completion bug.