“Moonshot” starring Cole Sprouse and Zach Braff, “Superintelligence” starring Melissa McCarthy (and written by her husband Ben Falcone), the 2020 remake of “The Witches,” “An American Pickle” starring Seth Rogen, “Locked Down” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway, and Sundance title “Charm City Kings” were the ones noticeably scrubbed from HBO Max over the past few months. Also permanently benched was LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s “House Party” reboot, which was slated to premiere July 28 on HBO Max but was never released.
A person with knowledge of the decision told IndieWire the six movies in question, as first discussed on a Reddit thread and reported by Variety, are part of a long list of films and series being pulled off HBO Max and Discovery+ as Warner Bros. Discovery executives prepare to turn two SVOD (subscriber video on-demand) services into one. The content being targeted for removal tends to be shows and movies that are not performing on the service but have an opportunity for a partial write off.
Holy shit, that's some accounting dark art, it's not even about creating artificial scarcity (like the Disney Vault), it's to artificially stifle a film's performance so you can write it off as a...
Content costs can be amortized — or assigned a cost that gets recognized by an entity across multiple years — over the program or film’s expected lifetime. If years on that timeline remain, a company can remove that asset from distribution and use its remaining cost balance to offset taxable income elsewhere.
Holy shit, that's some accounting dark art, it's not even about creating artificial scarcity (like the Disney Vault), it's to artificially stifle a film's performance so you can write it off as a loss.
How can there be a system where it's more profitable to make no money than to make some money?
When the immediate loss takes advantage of beneficial tax code, especially when there's a possibility of rising corporate taxes over the expected payoff timeline. Essentially, they trade potential...
When the immediate loss takes advantage of beneficial tax code, especially when there's a possibility of rising corporate taxes over the expected payoff timeline. Essentially, they trade potential payoff over time for certain payoff now.
Holy shit, that's some accounting dark art, it's not even about creating artificial scarcity (like the Disney Vault), it's to artificially stifle a film's performance so you can write it off as a loss.
How can there be a system where it's more profitable to make no money than to make some money?
When the immediate loss takes advantage of beneficial tax code, especially when there's a possibility of rising corporate taxes over the expected payoff timeline. Essentially, they trade potential payoff over time for certain payoff now.
It's called Hollywood Accounting for a reason. Watch The Producers. I prefer the 1967 original, but the 2005 adaptation does it justice.