The plan to quietly kill Coyote v. Acme blew up in David Zaslav’s face

This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on Hollywood trends and streaming culture, follow Charles Pulliam-Moore . The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes on Sundays at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . Under David Zaslav’s leadership, WBD got very into the practice of shelving its own nearly completed projects in order to cash in on subsequent tax write-offs . To help deal with its looming debt and operating costs , the studio killed Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s live-action Batgirl feature and the Scoob! Holiday Haunt movie from Michael Kurinsky and Bill Haller. Though people weren’t exactly foaming at the mouth for a Christmas-themed Scooby-Doo prequel, Batgirl ’s cancellation came as a surprise given how much the movie cost to produce (reportedly $90 million) and the fact that it was intended to be part of Warner Bros.’ last interconnected universe of movies based on DC’s comics. The DCEU was already plagued with problems long before the Batgirl situation, but it was still wild to see a studio chucking its movies into the garbage in order to make some guaranteed cash. Like Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt , Coyote v. Acme was nearly finished when WBD first announced in 2023 that it had decided to put the film on ice. But by then, the public had become more aware of Zaslav’s — who said axing Batgirl took “courage” — willingness to throw his creative partners under the bus. …