Warner Bros. continues its never-ending saga of shifting tides. Scoob: Holiday Haunt has been cancelled as well, following the shocking announcement that WB would not release Batgirl in cinemas or on HBO Max. The sequel to the 2020 film Scoob! has been shelved, as per The Hollywood Reporter, since the company has refocused efforts on theatrically distributed films. A number of WB’s best creatives were enraged by the same-day-and-date hybrid release format used by HBO Max before to the merger and the arrival of new CEO David Zaslav.
In many ways, WB hasn’t really recovered from it. In the middle of the pandemic, in mid-2020, Scoob! was released, largely on VOD, yet it made $28 million globally at the time of its release. For WB, it was all it took to get Holiday Haunt greenlit. We now know that this sequel cost $40 million to produce. In addition, this is one of the reasons why the film was cancelled.
Aside from the film’s theatrical plan, the company is pursuing “cost-cutting measures.” Holiday Haunt was intended to be on HBO Max, but now the studio doesn’t want to develop big-budget films for the streamer and has been gradually reducing the amount of original material on HBO Max over the last few months. As a film producer, it makes sense to distribute a picture in this manner because it’s difficult to recoup your investment. However, a $40 million budget for an animated feature is likely to be the low end of the scale. Even if Scoob! wasn’t the finest version of this classic cartoon, but it was nonetheless a colourful and enjoyable celebration of Hanna-Barbera.
Because the film was so popular, it’s hard to think that WB couldn’t recoup their investment if they had released the picture in cinemas instead of scrapping the sequel, which included an impressive roster of actors including Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, Will Forte, Gina Rodriguez, and Frank Welker. This is a low budget for an animated project, yet Scooby-Doo is still a highly sought-after brand more than 50 years after its release. That would indicate that WB has a better idea for the IP in the works. Perhaps a new live-action film? In that department, there’s still a lot of untapped potentials.
This series has always been more intriguing when it turned darker, even though it’s considered a kid-friendly property. Since its revival in the late ’90s with Zombie Island and Witch’s Ghost, I’d want to see the franchise return to those same themes and characters.
Several WB assets have had a difficult time since the company’s merger with Discovery earlier this year. A rising number of television series and films, such as Scooby-Doo: Holiday Haunt, have been announced as being either ending shortly or being scrapped altogether. On HBO Max, you can now watch Scooby-Doo! and the franchise’s two live-action features as we wait for Scooby’s future.