Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: dc, dc films, suicide squad, time warner

Time Warner Shocker: Q3 Earnings Exceed Expectations, Suicide Squad Gets Credit

Published Wed, 02 Nov 2016 09:15:44 -0500

DC parent corporation Time Warner is having a shockingly good day, according to their recently revealed Q3 financial report. The news that Time Warner was successful at something sent a tidal wave of disbelief through the Hollywood trade press, with website The Wrap so confused by the whole thing that they originally published a story with the headline "Time Warner's Q3 Earnings Miss Expectations as Warner Bros Revenue Drops 19 Percent" before amending it to "Time Warner's Q3 Earnings Crush Expectations Thanks to 'Suicide Squad,' CNN (Updated)" and issuing the following retraction:

(Editors note: A previous version of this story briefly stated that Time Warner missed on earnings expectations. That was incorrect. TheWrap regrets the error.)

Time Warner's revenue was $7.2 billion compared to a projected $6.88 billion, and while people like you and I might scoff at that measly extra .32 billion, to struggling entertainment conglomerates just doing their best to get by, it actually makes a really big difference. For instance, if Time Warner's earnings had been this great in 2014, the company might not have needed to lay off thousands of workers. Hopefully, those unemployed workers can take solace in the fact that Time Warner shareholders will be able to put some extra food on the table this holiday season.

DC's Rebirth initiative wasn't named as a primary contributor to Time Warner's Q3 success, despite trouncing Marvel in recent market share numbers, but that's because everybody already knows that comics are where the real money is at (right artists?), and the press wanted to give some attention to overlooked industries like movies and cable news. With that in mind, the box office success of Suicide Squad was cited as a reason for Time Warner's success, along with the highly rated though critically panned Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Show, which ran nonstop on Time Warner owned CNN for the duration of the quarter.

"We had a strong third quarter, which keeps us on track to exceed our original 2016 outlook and underscores our leadership in creating and distributing the very best content," Time Warner CEO Jeff "Geoff" Bewkes said in a press release. Bewkes seemed unconcerned about the potential dropoff of DC Rebirth sales as "Brand New Relaunch" smell begins to wear off and standard comic book sales attrition sets in, since he didn't even bring it up.

In October, AT&T finalized a deal to purchase Time Warner for $85 billion dollars, which must be looking like a real steal right now in the wake of this financial report. I saw a very nice multimedia conglomerate on sale at Costco last week, and it was well over $100 billion even with an instant rebate, so they're unlikely to get a better bargain anywhere.

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