Warner Bros. Pictures chief Michael De Luca offered a master class on becoming a studio executive during Saturday’s session at Produced By, a conference sponsored by the Producers Guild of America.
“The North Star is a constant pursuit of new talent and fresh voices and a way to refresh the pipeline, because if you don’t look for new voices and new talent and rely on what worked before, innovation dies within your organization,” De Luca said in a Q&A with producer Sarah Murphy. “If you cut too deep, the pipeline dries up and there aren’t enough movies.”
Mr. De Luca, who heads Warner Bros. Pictures with co-chairman and CEO Pamela Abdi, charted his career as a film-obsessed kid growing up in New York, achieving a dream with an internship at New Line Cinema. De Luca compared the current moment of YouTube-bred filmmakers making waves at the box office to the atmosphere of the 1980s, when the advent of home video created an economic boom and inspired the launch of many independent film companies, including New Line Cinema.
“In the first wave of independent companies in the ’80s, the VHS boom led to an explosion of independent companies like Canon (Pictures), Vestron, New Line, and New World,” De Luca told Warner Bros. producer Murphy. “One Battle After Another,” the Oscar-winning 2025 drama directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
The indie market of the 1980s helped usher in a new era in the film industry as major studios struggled to find the cultural pulse. De Luca compared it to the dynamic of the late 1960s, when major studios were producing expensive musicals that failed, and low-budget productions like “Bonnie & Clyde” and “Easy Rider” had a big impact.
“The job of a (movie) executive, then and now, in any company large or small, is to identify material, develop it, package it, market it, and distribute it to generate revenue. That’s the job,” De Luca said at a daylong event on the grounds of Universal Studios. “Under that umbrella, it doesn’t mean you can’t strive for artistic excellence, be honest in your work, be quick to answer people, be as kind and compassionate as possible when you have to say ‘no.’
Mr. De Luca emphasized that New Line’s spirit of innovation and determination continues under Bob Shea and Michael Lin. He quickly rose through the ranks and was appointed head of production at the young age of 27. De Luca recalled the first stone tablet with his stamp.
“In 1993, I had great luck. My first projects included ‘The Mask’ and ‘Dumber and Dumber.’ The second year, ‘Seven’ and a few others did well,” he said. “Our problems were resolved many years later in The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Island of Dr. Moreau.”
De Luca also emphasized that his years as a producer in between studio gigs helped him understand where the key pressure points are that prevent creators from doing their best work while worrying about the bottom line.
“We developed a lot of the material ourselves from scratch. We didn’t bother listening to pitches or getting flyers from writers to producers. This is the kind of work that just has to be done. It’s a small needle in a haystack, but it has to be developed in order to get enough projects on the starting line. The goal is that for every five or six projects developed, one gets the green light,” he said. “If you’re sloppy at a studio, it can be a tenth of a percent. Every year a studio cuts that development item right off the budget because it’s shitty money. If you mess it up, you could end up writing off $20 or $30 million at the end of the year for a movie that was developed but never made.”
Mr. De Luca declined to comment directly on the pending merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, which has Hollywood nervous. But his comments showed he’s been thinking a lot about where the industry is headed and what creatives need to succeed in the age of streaming, AI, TikTok, and more. He emphasized that if big Hollywood companies don’t explore the incredible creativity pouring out of social media platforms, startups will jump at the opportunity. The Produce By crowd was excited by the box office news that two low-budget horror films are hitting multiplexes: Focus Features’ Obsession and A24’s Backrooms.
“Every time a studio is afraid to invest in developing new material or take a chance on new filmmakers, you get Lionsgate, you get Summit, you get A24, you get Neon, you get MRC. The list goes on and on,” De Luca said. “If studios were doing their job, nothing needed to happen. Their job used to be identifying, acquiring, developing, producing, marketing, and distributing original films. Every time a studio was afraid to take a risk and just wanted to make a sequel, an adaptation of an IP, a franchise, a completely different competitive company pops up.”
De Luca said he is impressed by the new generation of YouTube creators, such as Caine Parsons of “Backrooms” and Curry Barker of “Obsession,” who have built strong connections and feedback loops with their social media followers.
“They hone their craft online. Caine worked on ‘Backroom’ for five years before his final film. These filmmakers are interacting with their audiences from the word go.” Subscribers provide direct input for each of these iterations. “There are about a billion test screenings before we get to the movie,” De Luca said. “We work with a lot of directors, and the last thing they want to do is sit at a screening in Oxnard or Dallas or Phoenix and wait for a focus group to start tearing the movie to shreds.” They’re not without strong opinions or artistic vision, but they’re making movies for an audience that has subscribed to their channel for years. It’s like a testing ground, so by the time the movie comes out, it’s really adjusted to satisfy the audience. ”
Studios are adapting to new rhythms of marketing and promotion at the pace of social media.
“One Battle After Another” star Chase Infinity made co-star Leonardo DiCaprio do a TikTok to promote the movie. “I don’t think any of us could have predicted it, but you can’t say no to Chase. She’s just the best at doing what she wants to do,” De Luca said.
Of course, he acknowledged that there are pros and cons to an era where every fan can hold a megaphone and express their opinion.
“If it works well, it’s a power multiplier,” De Luca said. He admitted that it was none other than Tom Cruise who sparked the “Babenheimer” summer of 2023 after Cruise posted a photo of him buying Warner Bros. tickets. “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” demonstrate support for moviegoing in general.
“This couldn’t have happened 10 years ago. ‘Balbenheimer’ couldn’t have happened without the internet, so the internet was a great tool,” De Luca said. “The downside now is when you get something that will mobilize the digital crowd again. It’s global, so just because the news wasn’t coming out to stay in bed until Sunday doesn’t mean you can steal your weekend. But now it’s like we have DOA on Friday night and Saturday morning. But when there’s something that people want to see, it’s worth the trade-off.”
Mr. De Luca shared, among other things, the view that the concept of “IP”, which has taken root over the past decade, is misunderstood. His idea of ”IP” is rooted not in existing materials or long-established characters, but in the talent of the people who create the materials.
“I actually think IP is a talent,” he said. “I don’t think Batman is intellectual property. I think the artists and writers who drew those comic books over the decades are intellectual property.”
De Luca recalled a meeting at Warner Bros. Pictures when he was a producer in which he was told the studio would no longer invest in new films, only sequels, Harry Potter films, and DC Studios titles. This approach and the push toward streaming-first exhibitions during the pandemic have weakened the once-proud studio. Christopher Nolan, the most respected director of his generation, had worked for Warner Bros. for many years, but his last two films were made at Universal, which led to their estrangement.
“Chris Nolan in the studio was sacrificed,” he said. “Filmmakers like that are very rare in a very competitive environment. You can’t fumble the ball. You have to give people the best experience possible.”
