The year of 2026 is definitely one that Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav and the rest of the studio brass would like to forget.
Coming off a banner year in 2025, this year's film slate has been a financial disaster.
In 2025, Warner Bros. pulled off a monster year, becoming the very first studio to cross the $4 billion mark at the global box office. They even set a brand-new industry record by landing seven straight $40 million-plus opening weekends, ultimately claiming nine separate #1 hits. Huge hits like A Minecraft Movie and James Gunn's Superman led the charge, while breakout originals like Sinners and Weapons proved the studio could win big across completely different genres.
The complete opposite has unfolded in 2026, with Supergirl being the most obvious misfire and Christian Bale's The Bride, The End of Oak Street and Mortal Kombat II all delivering box office numbers far short of investor expectations.
Supergirl carried a production budget of $170 million and grossed $126.4 million worldwide. The Bride was made for $80 million and amassed just $23.9 million worldwide. The Mortal Kombat sequel made the mistake of increasing the budget of the sequel from $55 million to $80 million. It grossed just $129.5 million worldwide. It's also important to note that all of these production budget costs don't factor in what the studio spent on marketing.
Meanwhile, the massive $110.9 billion Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery merger just slammed into its biggest roadblock yet this past summer.
However, the current obstacles and delays that the merger is facing could very well be the preferred outcome for WB.
An antitrust lawsuit in the state of California threatens to upend the deal, despite prior approval from the U.S. Department of Justice. That leaves Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison sitting on a ticking financial time bomb: Paramount is contractually obligated to pay WB $7 million per day for every day this merger stays stalled.Payments are scheduled to begin on October 1, 2026.
If the blockbuster merger completely collapses due to regulatory or antitrust hurdles, Paramount Skydance will be on the hook to pay Warner Bros. Discovery a staggering $7 billion reverse termination fee. That safety net alone would more than cover a rough patch at the multiplex, giving James Gunn total creative freedom to keep bankrolling weird projects starring C and D-list DC superheroes for years to come.
Another straw for WB to grasp at the moment is the forthcoming release of Dune: Part Three, but while the previous installments have proved critically and commercially successful, that film is set to go head-to-head with Avengers: Doomsday- an unenviable battle for any release.
Smaller wildcards like Tom Cruise's Digger and the horror-leaning Clayface could also shake things up.
A resolution might finally take shape in late October 2026, when Paramount Skydance, the WGA West, and a coalition of 12 state attorneys general are required to meet for a two-day, in-person settlement summit. Whether they can actually reach terms, however, is still anyone's guess.