Someone needs to give David Zaslav another math lesson or two. The Warner Bros CEO announced recently that he wants to bring the Harry Potter franchise back to the big screen. Unfortunately, the CEO got his numbers all mixed up after he claimed that it’s been “15 years” since we visited the Wizarding World.
According to Deadline, Zaslav spoke during Warner Bros Discovery’s Q3 earnings call. He announced that the company is going to focus on existing franchises and wanted to bring back big names such as Superman and Harry Potter. The CEO praised DC and Harry Potter for providing profits to Warner Bros in the past and hopes to find similar successes with them in the future. However, the CEO got his numbers wrong when he shared how long it’s been since Warner Bros worked those titles.
“We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years,” Zaslav emphasized. “We haven’t had a Harry Potter movie in 15 years. The DC movies and the Harry Potter movies provided a lot of profits to Warner Bros motion pictures over the last 25 years,”
Fans noticed the CEO’s massive mistake and made fun of him for being bad at math. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two was released eleven years ago in 2011. Meanwhile, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was just released this year. He may have been referring to the first Harry Potter film, as Harry Potter and the Philosopher‘s Stone came out 21 years ago in 2001.
It’s not just the Harry Potter franchise where Zaslav made mistakes. Fans pointed out that Man of Steel came out nine years ago in June 2013. Also, Superman appeared in multiple DCU films such as Batman vs. Superman, Justice League, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. What’s worse is that Superman made a cameo in the recent Black Adam film.
Either Zaslav has forgotten the cameo that Dwayne Johnson fought for or thought that Superman Returns was part of the DCU.
It was reported that Batgirl was canceled by Warner Bros for tax purposes. At the same time, Warner Bros have carried out multiple layoffs due to financial concerns. Zaslav’s terrible math skills led fans to assume that maybe he’s the reason why Warner Bros doesn’t have money which has resulted in them shelving projects.
Fans are also surprised that Warner Bros hasn’t gone bankrupt yet considering the guy got his numbers so wrong.
What’s quite embarrassing is not that this CEO is bad with numbers. After all, not everyone loves math. It’s that he didn’t fact-check his information during an important business meeting, particularly an important financial meeting. One can only hope that he didn’t have a hand in calculating the company’s current budget.