Village Roadshow Entertainment has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

3/31/2025 at 7:33:24 AM

by neonate

3/31/2025 at 7:23:15 AM

   Village Roadshow put into development 99 feature films, 166 scripted television series and 67 unscripted series. Of those, six movies and seven television series went into production.

I don't know if it is standard practice, but these numbers looks wild to me.

by greatgib

3/31/2025 at 8:15:53 AM

I don't know the exact numbers but it is consistent with other stuff I heard (notably the Brett Easton Ellis podcast which I recommend). Script writers churn a lot of scripts, many of them get bought but never produced. Or sit as a project for 10 years or more. But I think development doesn't mean they engage massive costs, just that they start trying to get the financing, perhaps with a tentative director and/or actor name attached to the project.

by cm2187

3/31/2025 at 3:07:47 PM

Yeah, there's a bunch of reasons Hollywood is notoriously known for "Development Hell" as its longest phase in the creative process. Production is generally "quick" and has a lot known knowns. Development is a lot of gossip and paperwork and contracts and writes and rewrites and license agreements and market studies and so forth, sometimes "forever" even for projects "everyone" thinks should be an easy thing to kick off and wants to see on some screen.

by WorldMaker

4/3/2025 at 4:05:56 AM

This is standard. Hollywood is horrible, though. It's not usually the best stuff that bubbles to the top. And even when the good stuff does get visibility, everyone wants a piece of it (especially if they are put up some $$ or other benefit) and meddles incessantly with the production, from the script, to the casting, to the marketing.

In the music biz we used to call this "write a word, take a third." I've never asked what the Hollywood equivalent is. Every production gets enshittified.

There are mountains of supremely talented people in Hollywood, but an equal amount of totally untalented chucklefucks with money and connections to screw everything up.

Maybe the AI will put production back into the hands of the talent. Their scripts will go unmolested by talentless moneyed hacks.

by qingcharles

3/31/2025 at 7:28:38 AM

It turns out, if you go all in on "torch the franchise and run" films (Matrix 4, Joker 2), you might not make back your money and can end up in a shitheap of financial trouble if they were costly to produce, distribute, and market.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TorchTheFranchis...

by bitwize

3/31/2025 at 10:11:20 AM

Did anyone even want a new Matrix movie? The story was concluded.

by Yeul

3/31/2025 at 3:17:16 PM

The storyline (immediately) continued and deepened in The Matrix Online and some of us did hope for a revival of The Matrix Online, given most people missed playing through that story, with a better budget and a goal to finish its planned storyline.

Matrix 4 was interesting in that it seemed to leave The Matrix Online canon (the Wachowskis seem earnest in trusting there cross-media plays in the franchise to be/remain canon) but didn't answer some of the old questions. On the other hand it did deliver a few nice things.

But yes a Warner Brothers execute hoping to boot up a Matrix branded money printer would not have had the sense to talk to anyone previously involved in The Matrix Online, despite owning Monolith (RIP), Matrix 4 was never really about continuing the story to the people demanding "we need a Matrix 4 by such and such quarter".

by WorldMaker

3/31/2025 at 6:22:14 PM

Not really (except hardcore fans, who already followed the 'after-trilogy' lore, and would have been happy with a continuation in a much cheaper format)

But Warner Brothers itself wanted a big tentpole release, and insisted Matrix be it. (Even though it wouldn't really fit that mold)

The Matrix 4 itself, even mentions how the demands on the release were ridiculous and wouldn't work (it's not 1999 anymore, you can't just re-do 1999 and expect it to work).

The Matrix 4 film itself is really good (IMHO), as a huge fan of the original stories and lore, it moves the universe forward in a way that feels authentic to the original trilogy, it reunites old characters, makes charming and thoughtful new ones, and it remains authentic and true to the original romance underpinning the whole thing. The lack of Hugo Weaving/Laurence Fishburne, and a little bit of dated action fights is the only real bummer I can think of.

The problem is that the film is only good, and not mind-crushingly great. And what everyone seemed to want out of this, was a guaranteed 300+ mil smash hit at box.

If they had released it to theaters, I don't think it would have made that. But it 'only' cost $190 million to make (Matrix 2 was 265m in 2024 dollars), and I think Matrix 4 would have done at least $200 mil total at box, if it had a theatrical release (for comparison, The Marvels is another 'good-but-not-great' SciFi action film, and grossed $206 million at box).

by maxsilver

3/31/2025 at 5:02:54 AM

Note this is related to but separate from the Australia company Village Roadshow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Roadshow

The Australian company owned 3% of the American Village Roadshow.

by sien

3/31/2025 at 5:12:01 AM

Wonder how it's possible.

> "The breach of contract lawsuit against Warner Bros. came after the studio introduced “The Matrix Resurrections” in December 2021 on its HBO Max streaming service the same day the film was released in movie theaters. Village Roadshow complained that the Burbank studio’s pivot away from an exclusive theatrical release had destroyed the value of a key franchise."

-- how is that true? Did they lose that much box office money on Matrix Resurrections that cashflow or lack of revenues made them collapse?

> “A confluence of macro-economic factors have weighed heavily on the company’s balance sheet,”

-- Now we're getting somewhere. An unbalanced budget? What might have caused it I wonder? Would they have a worse time than the other studios or have less cash reserves etc?

A shame the article doesn't give many answers. Would love to know.

by daniel_iversen

3/31/2025 at 5:32:44 AM

I just assume every step of this was hollywood accounting tricks to not pay a bunch of the people they contractually owe money to.

eddy murphy called it "monkey points"

https://hollywoodlexicon.com/points.html

by fsckboy

3/31/2025 at 6:37:55 AM

The article mentions they pivoted to a different business model just before the pandemic. That model was to be a full in-house studio. Their timing was unfortunate.

by bravoetch

3/31/2025 at 6:16:47 AM

Bankruptcy doesn't mean they run out of money. Its protection from creditors on the expectation that a current or perceived liability will impair them, and the protection thwarts it.

But yes 99% correlated to having no ability to repay.

Its possible they expect a countersuit to win. Or they borrowed to much to pay lawyers.

by yieldcrv

3/31/2025 at 8:34:29 AM

The proximate cause seems to be a $100M claim from WB against VREG regarding additional finance costs for matrix revolutions circa 2021. VREGs counter(?) suit was recently kicked back and told to go to arbitration. VREG also claims to have spent $19M pursuing their legal claims/response so far. My read is legal costs + no productions in the pipeline + no recent profitable activity + a likely ~$100M arbitration result is exactly whats led to bankruptcy.

by donavanm

3/31/2025 at 6:26:42 AM

You can’t trust public statements for reasoning.

One retailer I liked blamed “shifting consumer demand for their demise but they also doubled their store count by like 100 within two years. Consumer demand did shift but they also legitimately f’d up.

by harrall

3/31/2025 at 9:30:00 AM

“The Matrix Resurrections” was released Dec 22, 2021 (during Covid) with only $10.7m US opening, $37.7m US gross and $157m worldwide (cinema) gross against a reported budget of $190m. So it certainly seems like WB's switch to simultaneous streaming+cinematic release lost them a packet (although it got so-so reviews so maybe it wouldn't have done great ordinarily anyway).

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10838180/

by smcin

4/1/2025 at 4:00:58 AM

How much did they gross from streaming it?

by mmooss

3/31/2025 at 7:59:31 AM

"Hollywood accounting" being notorious for avoiding payout to rights owners down the list, is it fair to ask if this is a bit "leopards ate my face" as one arc of Hollywood consumes another by creative accounting?

The decision to release product against Village Roadshows wishes feels like potential breach of contract stuff but this is now water under the bridge.

I wonder if the bond completion insurance side of this is also now a bit underwater: money in films is strange and all kinds of people and their two-and-a-half employee company could be affected. Feel a bit sad for industry people who lose their shirt in this.

by ggm

3/31/2025 at 5:38:53 AM

I wonder too if this is poor leadership not understanding that the streaming era is just a return to classic TV. Like hey, swinging and missing on a high cost major blockbuster is more devastating than greenlighting a ton of lower budget movies with up and coming actors.

Aka I like Chris Pratt or the Rock just fine but one movie a year is enough??

by system7rocks

3/31/2025 at 5:43:02 AM

[flagged]

by Carrok

3/31/2025 at 5:56:03 AM

I still like the characters that Spacey portrayed. I admire his work I don’t admire him as a person.

by whatever1

3/31/2025 at 6:19:41 AM

People these days have no ability to separate the art from the artist. It's a shame. I guess it's their loss if they deprive themselves of perfectly good art because they don't like who made it.

by bigstrat2003

3/31/2025 at 6:21:57 AM

I will gladly deprive myself of “art” made by admitted and convicted rapists. To each their own I suppose. I used to love Spacey.

by Carrok

3/31/2025 at 6:36:21 AM

It’s very hard to draw the line. I see your point I just find it intractable.

For example what if I told you that one of the executive producers of your favorite movie is a horrible felon? What if it was the editor ? Do you background check all of the contributors?

It also seems to me that people who achieved great things were either deeply traumatized or really disturbing individuals. A regular 9-5er who is an excellent family member, friend and has great morals rarely achieves greatness. I guess it really begs the question is it worth it?

I think historically we relied on the great work these horrible folks and conveniently scrubbed their horrible backgrounds.

by whatever1

3/31/2025 at 5:56:59 PM

You can separate the art from the artist and still not want the artist to make money.

by Suppafly

3/31/2025 at 5:51:24 AM

Who are you responding to? Cause it’s not my comment.

by system7rocks

3/31/2025 at 5:57:13 AM

[flagged]

by Carrok

3/31/2025 at 10:41:19 AM

People in India might know them as the "VR" in the PVR chain of cinemas in some cities across India.

by shrikant

3/31/2025 at 4:29:31 AM

They deserve that for Matrix Resurrections.

by DecentShoes

3/31/2025 at 4:57:11 AM

Hey! I enjoyed Matrix Resurrections.

by zeroday28

3/31/2025 at 5:50:24 AM

Matrix Resurrections had a super trippy premise, which was in line with the original film. The first half of the movie was momentously expectation-breaking mind fuckery, and I immensely enjoyed it. (I wish I had shut the film off after the reveal.)

The action sequences and set pieces were absolutely lackluster and downright boring despite the film's budget. (Not sure if this is due to the age of the actors - the John Wick series seems to have figured this out just fine.)

Most damning of all, the story arc, character arcs, and final resolution were phoned in and utterly forgettable. It's tragic, given the ludicrously audacious start of the film. The setup was there, but there was no investment beyond the trick premise.

Lana swung for the fences but struck out. It felt like an M. Night Shyamalan letdown.

by echelon

3/31/2025 at 6:49:27 AM

Lana swung for the fences but struck out. It felt like an M. Night Shyamalan letdown.

I still don’t know why she even agreed. The pay check?

If they wanted to bring it back, they should have discarded all the previous stuff besides the basic premise. The original movie even had this whole thing about Neo being the sixth “The One”.

That’s 5 prequels right there. And the obvious exploration of what happened after the reboot.

Trying to bring back the cast except as a way to hand over the franchise (by dying) is almost always going to be stupid.

by 2muchcoffeeman

3/31/2025 at 7:06:43 AM

> I still don’t know why she even agreed. The pay check?

She put it bluntly in the first 15 minutes, in meeting scene.

by SSLy

3/31/2025 at 10:53:11 AM

the scene :

    ...now the packet in front of you has our focus group research inside you'll find the breakdown including key word association with the brand the top two being originality and fresh which i think are great things to keep in mind as you begin working on matrix four and who knows how many more...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roeN9Cjkan0

by vincnetas

3/31/2025 at 8:12:07 AM

Yeah, Neo is told the project is going ahead with or without his involvement so he gets involved to make it suck less.

by moomin

3/31/2025 at 10:09:48 AM

It’s hard to imagine a suckier version of what they made.

by prepend

3/31/2025 at 2:03:24 PM

I think it's brilliant.

Only when the reveal is done and the action starts does it begin to fall apart as a lackluster story with subpar motivations and arcs.

Until that point it's a fantastic mindfuck.

If they'd simply left it as a drama with no action at all and focused more on character development, it could have been amazing.

by echelon

3/31/2025 at 4:36:30 PM

Oh, it's very easy. Watch Terminator: Genisys sometime. Or the Alien vs Predator movie.

by moomin

3/31/2025 at 9:10:30 AM

> I still don’t know why she even agreed. The pay check?

She has explicitly said in interviews they told her they would make it with or without her, so she made it crap on purpose to tank the franchise. It was supposed to suck.

by testing22321

3/31/2025 at 10:00:28 AM

Wouldn't such a public statement be enough to ruin their argument in the lawsuit against WB?

> Village Roadshow complained that the Burbank studio’s pivot away from an exclusive theatrical release had destroyed the value of a key franchise.

by nsteel

3/31/2025 at 6:36:57 AM

I actually like 2 and 3 in retrospect, but I shut 4 off about halfway through.

I liked the reimagining of agent smith ("the man") from an unnamed government agent to a tech bro. The conversation about the new matrix being made "with or without" the original creator was a great fuck you to whoever was pulling those strings.

I wanted them to add another couple layers to the mind fuckery. We're used to watching the matrix and knowing which scenes are in the matrix and which are in the real world. Mess with that. Reveal halfway through that the "real world" scenes we've seen so far (in 4, not the previous movies) have actually been in the matrix.

In my ideal world, the climax would've been Neo realizing that he's been dead the whole movie, existing as a manifestation of the free machines, giving them individuality and choice the same way that agent smith took away human individuality and choice in 3. Trinity can still be saved, but Neo can never go with her to the real world.

by jon_richards

3/31/2025 at 3:38:45 PM

> In my ideal world, the climax would've been Neo realizing that he's been dead the whole movie, existing as a manifestation of the free machines, giving them individuality and choice the same way that agent smith took away human individuality and choice in 3. Trinity can still be saved, but Neo can never go with her to the real world.

According to some readings of the film, the climax is Neo realizing that he's been dead (at least figuratively) the whole movie. Those are the readings that Neo and Trinity are the same character and Neo is as much or more the "deadname"/"dead inside" parts. Matrix 4 did a bunch of work for those readings.

by WorldMaker

3/31/2025 at 8:18:36 AM

That's brilliant!

by actionfromafar

3/31/2025 at 8:10:45 AM

Honestly I liked 4 better than 2 or 3. But mostly for the first half. It probably goes down as the best movie made despite the objections of the director and I found the self-referential thing really funny.

by moomin

3/31/2025 at 5:03:36 AM

We demand proof of mental health

by jack_pp

3/31/2025 at 7:05:52 AM

got plenty found in ICD/DSM.

by SSLy

3/31/2025 at 8:16:56 AM

You do know that Lana Wachowski intentionally made it as bad as possible to tank the franchise cause she was forced to make the movie or the studio would get someone else to direct it right?

by Ghos3t

3/31/2025 at 10:07:57 AM

I don’t think this narrative makes sense.

Didn’t she write the movie? And pitch the idea?

Why would she pitch a movie just to purposely make it horrible? If she was forced to make a movie, why not make it good? Or at least not one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years?

The take you mentioned seems more like after the fact justifications for making a horrible film.

by prepend

3/31/2025 at 10:31:31 AM

More likely, Sickboy's Philosophy is in play. At one point they had it, then they lost it and it's gone forever.

by lupusreal

3/31/2025 at 9:31:45 AM

The funny thing is that it's easy to do this

Just ask the executives what kind of movie they have in mind

by raverbashing

3/31/2025 at 9:32:41 AM

Didn't know. That's sad to hear. That's Hollywood, baby.

by smcin

3/31/2025 at 5:14:05 AM

Same here

by gigatexal

3/31/2025 at 4:57:47 AM

Woah, a matrix movie came out… wait, four years ago?

by bee_rider

3/31/2025 at 5:21:54 AM

Better to keep living like they only made 3 Matrix films :)

by cadamsdotcom

3/31/2025 at 5:30:36 AM

Only two actually, and one of them was an anime.

by bee_rider

3/31/2025 at 8:23:38 AM

This is the correct answer. It will never cease to disappoint me that 2&3 didn’t go in one of the many interesting directions implied by the Animatrix.

by moomin

3/31/2025 at 5:34:00 AM

3?! I prefer to live like there were only 2.

by plantain

3/31/2025 at 5:37:13 AM

Randall would maintain there's only the 1.

https://xkcd.com/566/

by arduanika

3/31/2025 at 5:52:43 AM

and Dark City was its name?

On a serious not The Matrix was a fine film with fantastic effects but on a scale of Punch & Depth per $ spent on production Dark City delivered more bang per buck.

by defrost

3/31/2025 at 4:06:46 PM

Dark City was a famous budgeting disaster because it spent way too much on sets and went rather over-budget, then did the terrible thing of not making that much money in the box office. The Matrix was able to spend so much of its budget on effects and effects innovation precisely because it got handed so many of Dark City's way too expensive sets trying to recoup some of the costs of Dark City.

They are definitely related, and I also think Dark City was the better version of Matrix 1 on a storytelling and aesthetics level, Matrix's innovative effects aside, but then I like all of the Matrix sequels a lot more than I like the first Matrix film.

by WorldMaker

3/31/2025 at 5:55:39 AM

Watch the first half of it, then turn it off.

If you like late 90's / early 2000's M. Night Shyamalan, the first half of the film is brilliant. But after the reveal it falls apart like the last season of Game of Thrones. It's as if Lana stopped caring.

It would have been fantastic to have timed it with the release of the Matrix MMO game. It's as if that had been the plan all along.

by echelon

3/31/2025 at 4:52:44 AM

And Joker 2 or whatever stupid-ass name they gave it.

by mvdtnz

3/31/2025 at 5:29:36 AM

Folie à Deux was a great name though. Not defending the movie but as a title for a Joker & Harley movie it works.

by prisenco

3/31/2025 at 5:45:27 AM

I haven’t watched either yet, but is the sequel a bad movie or just not at all what one would be expecting?

by wodenokoto

3/31/2025 at 5:56:26 AM

I loved Joker 2! They spent an unbelievable amount of money for the audience to have a really really awful time and awful feeling in the stomach afterwards. Recommended it you want to have a bad time - with a film that just aims at that.

by franze

3/31/2025 at 6:58:59 AM

It's a musical. Either of your interpretations applies.

by clown_strike

3/31/2025 at 8:21:22 AM

I’m in the tiny demographic who thinks Joker 2 being a musical starring Lady Gaga was a strong decision, let down by waves in the general direction of almost everything else about the movie.

by moomin

3/31/2025 at 5:51:57 AM

The latter.

(I really liked both movies by the way).

by LaundroMat

3/31/2025 at 5:45:19 AM

Should've called it Folie à Doo Doo.

by tjpnz

3/31/2025 at 4:46:18 AM

Another sign tech has absorbed Hollywood. It's become so anemic that it's falling to shambles. Big tech will buy it up on the cheap.

by echelon

3/31/2025 at 6:46:05 AM

They mention about $50m coming in annually, I assume that's from film and tv rights. What does big tech have to do with that?

by bravoetch

3/31/2025 at 2:10:41 PM

The mid market film has died thanks to Disney monopolizing the box office with their tent poles. (Though this is questionable hypothesis and more of a complaint about Marvelization.)

The healthy revenue from long box office legs and DVD sales has died thanks to streaming. And the youth that would rather get their dopamine fix elsewhere.

But the streaming wars have done incredible damage to this once thriving industry.

Amazon and Apple have come in and subsided their own studios from unrelated business units. (Where is antitrust?) They're teaching consumers that the price of movies is free.

by echelon

3/31/2025 at 4:27:09 PM

Theater tickets are too expensive for most people to watch an unknown quantity on a whim. They prefer franchise movies because they roughly know what they're going to get for their money, and that's why Disney is still going strong while others fail. I don't think Disney is sucking the air out of the rest of the movie industry, I think ticket sales for anything novel would still suck just as hard if Disney wasn't in the movie business at all. It's not like people have a fixed amount of times they're going to pay to see a movie every year and Disney is hogging up that number. When people are feeling economic hurt, not seeing any movies in theaters at all is an option many will pick.

by lupusreal

3/31/2025 at 6:34:38 AM

Ug5

by miguelrodrigue

3/31/2025 at 4:25:09 AM

How is this possible when The Matrix: Resurrections was the best entry in the whole series? /s

Does anyone know: Did the dispute with Warner Brothers cause the digs against Warner Brothers in the Resurrections script, or vice versa, or were they both caused by something else, or were they unrelated?

by treetalker

3/31/2025 at 5:10:39 AM

Unrelated.

- The dispute was after the movie released.

- Only one of the Wachowskis could be convinced to come back.

- WB had tried and failed at least once getting a new Matrix movie off the ground after Revolutions without the Wachowskis.

- The Matrix Resurrections features the line "[Warner Bros. are] going to do it with or without us."

More background: https://ew.com/movies/matrix-resurrections-scene-doing-seque...

by Andrex

3/31/2025 at 4:53:38 AM

Non-paywalled link.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/joker-matrix-producer-files-b...

by MilnerRoute

3/31/2025 at 4:37:28 AM

[flagged]

by pylotlight