Posted in: HBO, Legendary, Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: dune, godzilla vs. kong, hbo max, legendary, movies, Warner Bros

Legendary Reportedly Going to Challenge Warner Bros. HBO Max Deal

Published Mon, 07 Dec 2020 11:45:23 -0600

by Kaitlyn Booth

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When Warner Bros. decided to release all of their 2021 releases in both theaters and HBO Max, everyone started speculating like crazy. Some people were wondering if this was the end of the movie theater [it isn't] or that everyone is going to stay home and stream their movies [they won't] and generally got extremely apocalyptic about the entire thing [it's going to be fine]. While everyone was talking about this, there were some rumblings that things were going to get interesting. While the news was breaking, Aaron Couch over on Heat Vision at The Hollywood Reporter posted to his Twitter that "Some partners such as Legendary, which has Godzilla vs. Kong, were not aware" of this move which seemed to indicate that things might be getting interesting behind the scenes. Now that the dust has settled a little bit, it sounds like Legendary could be clapping back at Warner Bros. for this decision.

Legendary Reportedly Going to Challenge Warner Bros. HBO Max Deal — Top to Bottom: the official logos for Legendary and HBO Max

According to Deadline, Legendary only knew about 30 minutes before the rest of us did that two of their major movies, Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, would be heading to HBO Max. Earlier in the week, there were rumors that Legendary was looking to sell Godzilla vs. Kong to Netflix for a massive $250 million but that this HBO Max torpedoed that. "I'm hearing that Legendary Entertainment either has or will send legal letters to Warner Bros as soon as today, challenging the decision to put the Denis Villenueve-directed Dune into the HBO Max deal, and maybe Godzilla vs. Kong as well," according to Deadline's sources. They point out that Legendary could very well have a leg to stand on since "Legendary and its partners provided 75% of the $165 million or so net budget of Dune, the adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel that was envisioned to be the first of multiple films exploiting the six-novel series. It put up a similar amount of the funding on the Godzilla vs. King film."

No papers or legal filings have officially gone in yet, but it seems like a massive misstep on Warner Bros. part not to include Legendary in this decision. Dune is set to be one of the biggest and most anticipated movies of 2021, while fans of Godzilla vs. Kong lost their damn minds over 3 seconds of footage at CCXP just yesterday, so there is absolutely a demand there. This story is still developing.

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