Superhero TV Thrives After Warner Bros. Loosens Film’s Grip on DC Entertainment

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http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/the-...ow-1201646970/

Soon after Kevin Tsujihara took over as Warner Bros. chairman-CEO, he made the decision to break with protocol from the previous regime — a change that would have a profound effect on the studio. At an early strategy session, senior execs recall him issuing a new edict: DC Entertainment is open for business across the lot.

Tsujihara made it clear that the vast archive of comic-book characters in the DC vault would no longer be under the tight control of Warner Bros.’ film division. WB’s television and interactive units would have new flexibility to develop projects derived from the properties, even if they were concurrently being eyed for movie projects.

He established the studio’s equivalent of the Justice League. Every two weeks, top execs including DC Entertainment’s Diane Nelson and Geoff Johns, Warner Bros. Pictures’ Sue Kroll and Greg Silverman and Warner Bros. TV’s Peter Roth gather with Tsujihara to talk about all things DC, and coordinate strategies.

The group aims to be respectful of one another’s goals, and mindful of the danger of flooding the market with too much product. But TV, video games and consumer products no longer take a back seat to film. Prolific producer Greg Berlanti is approaching superhero status himself on the WB lot for his success in steering the DC-derived series — “The Flash” and “Arrow” (plus another on tap for midseason, “Legends of Tomorrow”) — that have turned around the fortunes of the CW, which Warner Bros. jointly owns with CBS Corp.

In 2009, Warner Bros. restructured DC Comics to create DC Entertainment — in a comic-book-worthy twist of fate, the same week Disney announced its stealth $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment. The goal was to turn DC, now led by Nelson, a respected studio marketing vet who made her mark shepherding the “Harry Potter” film franchise, into a “feeder” of source material for all WB divisions, while maintaining a big presence in comic-book publishing. In practice, however, because Nelson reported to then Warner Bros. Pictures chief Jeff Robinov, the focus remained highly film-centric.

That pecking order had been set a decade earlier, in 1999, sources say, when the WB Network (now the CW) was hot on a “Batman” prequel script from writer Tim McCanlies that revolved around the youthful adventures of Bruce Wayne. The project was shut down before it got to the pilot production stage after WB Pictures execs got wind of it, and worried that it would muck up their plans to revive “Batman” on the big screen. The WB Network was allowed to pursue a similar concept for Superman, which yielded the 10-year success of “Smallville,” but the earlier sting lingered.