As Warner Bros. prepares for a Superman and Minecraft-led 2025, dusty IPs like Gremlins and Goonies are being unearthed

This whole Warner Bros. Discovery thing has been a mess, hasn't it? The media and entertainment company puts out a fair amount of bangers each year because it controls so much, but it's been abundantly clear that there's no real plan for its assets (yuck, hate that word). The solution? Just throwing renowned properties at the wall to see what sticks, and we're now at the stage of desperation when stuff like Gremlins and The Goonies are being dusted off.

As the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, arguably the company's most famous branch, prepares for a shaky 2025 which could be either saved or doomed by blockbusters like DC Studios' Superman and the long-in-the-works (and already divisive) Minecraft movie, it's starting to look for more intellectual properties that might entice folks to visit the nearest cinema. Mind you, their auteur-driven output for this year is looking great, but that alone doesn't make numbers go up enough!

Via Deadline, we've learned that worldwide marketing president Josh Goldstine and international theatrical distribution president Andrew Cripps exited the company last week, a move that's caused some confusion in the Hollywood circles. Meanwhile, motion picture group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are trying "to restore Warner Bros. as the trusted home for signature filmmakers." Don't forget that Christopher Nolan's massively successful Oppenheimer was the result of Warner fumbling Tenet's release in 2020 and the writer-director leaving his previous longtime partner for Universal.

Regardless, and as teased before, Warner's 2025 theatrical schedule is interesting on that front: We have Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17, Barry Levinson's The Alto Knights, Ryan Coogler's Sinners, and Paul Thomas Anderson's next movie coming up and set to release alongside crowd-pleasing flicks like the two aforementioned behemoths, the new Final Destination, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Mortal Kombat 2, among others. It's a slate that looks healthy, but the powers that be are struggling to keep things interesting in 2026 and beyond outside of DC Studios' ambitious plans (which depend on Superman's financial performance this year).

Yes, there's that Gollum-centric Lord of the Rings movie and perhaps more coming afterwards, but chances are it'll not make its late 2026 release window at this rate. While competitors like Universal and Disney seem to be slowly but steadily bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels of theatrical success, Warner Bros. needs a few more heavyweight wins per year, and it seems that executives are moving heaven and earth to make that happen. The Deadline article states that "franchise hopes" are placed on things like "Drew Goddard’s incoming script for a new Matrix, a new Gremlins from Christopher Columbus, and a Goonies treatment" as well.

The Matrix Resurrections wasn't exactly a win, despite it instantly gaining a cult following; general audiences largely rejected it, and the box office haul came in at just $157 million worldwide (it was released day-and-date on streaming though). Meanwhile, 1980s properties like Gremlins and The Goonies haven't been relevant for a very long time beyond boomers, Gen-X, and millennials referencing and reminiscing about them, something that's seeped into much of the recent crowd-pleasing entertainment (just look at Star Wars' most recent show). The former received an animated TV show in 2023, but almost no one talked about it (more episodes are planned for 2025 though).

Sorry, but I just can't see these being massive hits that convince the young ones to put their phones down and flock into a theater, and it's been proven time and again that people in their 50s can't carry a dormant IP out of the grave. They might have a chance if they're smartly budgeted, but that's a rare occurrence in today's Hollywood climate, so color me skeptical.