J.J. Abrams has been quite the hot commodity in Hollywood for some time, and the superstar writer, director, and producer was on the hunt for an enormous mega-deal from several studies last year, with WarnerMedia coming out the victor. That deal has now officially closed as WarnerMedia has announced that J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company will makes movies, TV shows, games, and other entertainment content for WarnerMedia beginning immediately and running through to 2024.
The deal is said to be valued at $500 million, but some have said that it's more in line with $250 million, but either way you shake it, that's a lot of cash. Although J.J. Abrams said that it's "bittersweet" to be leaving Bad Robot's longtime movie-making home of Paramount Pictures, the official press-release states that Bad Robot will be honouring its existing obligations to Paramount. "We still have a number of great stories to tell together, and for that, I feel exceedingly lucky," Abrams said. WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey added that they're "extremely excited about the potential to deliver remarkable and memorable stories and characters across multiple platforms to audiences around the world… Across all forms of content, we are uniquely positioned to offer our creative partners a multitude of platforms to realize their artistic goals and ambitions, and to ensure that their stories have the best possible opportunity to connect with the right audience." In a further statement, J.J. Abrams said:
It is a thrill for Katie [McGrath], Brian [Weinstein] and me and the rest of our team at Bad Robot to call WarnerMedia our company's new home. John Stankey has a powerful vision for the future of WarnerMedia and is committed to storytelling that connects people around the world. We are excited and gratified to be a part of this new chapter under his and Ann Sarnoff's thoughtful leadership. I could go on for hours, and probably will, about the extraordinary Peter Roth and the entire Warner's television group, with whom we've worked for over a decade, and I've wanted to collaborate with Toby Emmerich and his team for as long as I can remember. I am grateful for the chance to write, produce and direct work for this incredible company and to help create films and series with a diverse and vast collection of inspiring storytellers. We can't wait to get started.
As Abrams stated above, Bad Robot has been working with Warner Bros. on the television side for some time, but this new deal will see that partnership expanded in a major way. How long before Warner Bros. gets J.J. Abrams on a DC superhero movie? J.J. Abrams' next film, STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, is slated to hit theaters on December 19, 2020.