(Reuters) – Warner Bros Discovery Inc on Wednesday raised its expectations of costs related to content write-offs by $1 billion and said the charges could now reach up to $3.5 billion.
For the media company, formed earlier this year by the merger of AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia unit and Discovery Inc, the total financial restructuring cost could now be between $4.1 billion and $5.3 billion.
Warner Bros has undertaken a series of cost-cutting measures since the merger, including canceling projects such as the live-action version of the DC Comics character “Batgirl”, a planned “Wonder Twins” film, and shutting down the CNN+ streaming news service.
Some reports said the shows “Nevers” and “Westworld” would be pulled from HBO Max.
The company has said the restructuring initiatives will be substantially completed by the end of 2024.
(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
