UPDATE 9/9: The same source now says HBO Max could be gone and Casey Bloys out after the merger, with Zack Snyder friend Scott Stuber floated to run the streaming consolidation.
The same source who told us to keep an eye on Gal Gadot just widened the lens.
First, the receipt. On August 21, our source said to watch Gal Gadot’s schedule, with Wonder Woman 3 possibly moving under the incoming regime.
This week, Gadot said it herself: “If Zack comes back to run DC, I’ll come back.”
Now the same source says Wonder Woman is one piece of something much bigger coming out of the Paramount-WBD merger.
“P+WB want to bring back ‘women pictures’ big time. Not teen woke idiocy like Netflix & Amazon, but real ‘vehicles’ for adult / mature women,” we’re told.
“People I know have been pitching such specs non stop, and selling them. Vehicles for a-listers with real $$$ behind them. They think it’s an underserved market that can be very profitable,” said the source.
The source adds: “Actresses in their 40s-60s will get lots of interesting offers. Think a-listers like Hathaway, Portman, Winslet, Diaz, Foster, etc. etc.”
The Specs Are Already Selling
A quick translation. A “vehicle” is a movie built around its star. A spec is a script written without a studio deal and then sold on the open market.
Writers are pitching these movies right now, and they’re getting paid.
To be clear on the sourcing: Anne Hathaway, Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, and Jodie Foster are the source’s examples of the tier of talent, not casting announcements.
But look at the first name on that list. Hathaway is already on the Ellison slate, starring opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder 2.
And she just proved the audience shows up. The Devil Wears Prada 2 was one of the hits of the year, a movie Cruise himself name-checked at Daytona.
They Pointed To Wonder Woman
The source flagged the Gadot story for a reason.
Wonder Woman 3 with Gal Gadot is what a “women picture” looks like at franchise scale: a proven star, a proven property, and real money behind it.
As we said in the August 21 report, that one remains a watch, not a greenlight. The new intel is about the lane being built around it.
Under the current DC regime, the character got a cameo and a canceled show.
Under the incoming one, a Gadot Wonder Woman 3 is a scheduling question, and the biggest female-led superhero franchise ever is treated as an asset instead of a leftover.
Don’t Forget Barbie
Warner Bros. reportedly has until this December to sign Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and Ryan Gosling for Barbie 2, or the rights revert to Mattel.
Per The New York Times, the holdup is current WBD CEO David Zaslav, who reportedly won’t fork out the money for the sequel — this for the biggest movie in Warner Bros. history at $1.4 billion.
Worth noting: the executives making those offers are Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, the same two set to run the studio under Paramount.
Barbie 2 is exactly the kind of thing that would fit nicely under the Ellison-run Paramount-WBD.
Practical Magic 2 Arrives September 11
And the first real test of that market hits theaters next weekend.
Practical Magic 2 opens September 11, with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back as the Owens sisters nearly three decades later, Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest returning as the aunts, and Joey King playing Sally’s daughter. Bullock and Kidman aren’t just starring, they’re producing it.
Bullock is 62. Kidman is 59. It’s a legacy sequel to a beloved title, built around two A-listers squarely in the bracket the source describes, and it’s a Warner Bros. movie, meaning the audience test is happening inside the same company Ellison is buying.
The 1998 original got written off after flopping in theaters, then spent the next three decades becoming one of the most beloved titles in the WB library. The sequel exists because that audience never went anywhere.
Paramount-WBD Won’t Just Be About The Boys
All along, the word on Ellison’s plan has skewed male: Star Trek, G.I. Joe, the Snyder return, going all in on Batman, Days of Thunder — the plan Tom Cruise laid out at Daytona, the same one an insider says Disney and Netflix are doing everything to stop.
Now add the other half of the audience.
The contrast in the message is the strategy. The streamers chase teens. Paramount-WBD wants grown women back in theaters, and sees money sitting on the table.
Paramount already has the proof of concept on the TV side. Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness, built around Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, and Laysla De Oliveira, is in the middle of Season 3 on Paramount+ right now, and it’s the show’s best-reviewed season yet.
Kidman again — 59. Saldaña is 48. That is exactly the audience and the talent the source is describing, and Paramount is already in business with both.
“Netflix & Amazon & Apple TV won’t like it one bit,” the source adds.
