DC movies like The Batman will be available to stream on Tubi

When it comes to the Streaming Wars, Warner Bros. Discovery has been less territorial than some of its competitors. For instance, the studio has the rights to Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s popular adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi book. If it wanted, WBD could make Dune exclusively available to stream on its own streaming service Max, but it’s opted to share Dune with Netflix as well. Money is money, figures WBD CEO David Zaslav, and Dune stands to make more more money if more people see it.

WBD also has the rights to DC movies, but today we’re hearing from Variety that in addition to appearing on Max, movies like The Batman, Suicide Squad, Black Adam, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and more will also be on Fox’s ad-supported streaming service Tubi starting in 2024. DC TV shows like Batwoman, Gotham and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman will be available there too, as will older movies like the Michael Keaton Batman movies and the Christopher Reeve Superman films; in fact, you can watch all of those on Tubi starting today.

You might think it’s odd that WBD would share these valuable movies and shows with a streaming service operated by a difference studio. But WBD is very much about the cash these days. Remember that they’re the studio that decided not to release the basically-finished Batgirl movie in favor of taking a tax write-off. The name of the game is cash flow, and if they think making The Batman available to watch with commercials on Tubi will help get them money, they’re willing to give up exclusivity.

Podcasts like The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon now hosted on Spotify

Warner Bros. Discovery is making lots of moves lately. Per The Hollywood Reporter, they’ve stuck a deal with Spotify to distribute podcasts from brands like HBO, Max, CNN, Bleacher Report, WBD Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies Network and truTV, all of them operated by WBD. Podcasts like All There Is with Anderson Cooper and The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon will be hosted and distributed on Spotify’s platform Megaphone.

I’m not sure how I feel about these moves, particularly the sharing of DC movies and shows with Tubi. On the one hand, I’m disinclined to give Zaslav and the other execs at WBD the benefit of the doubt, because in their pursuit of profits they’ve done silly things like cancel perfectly good movies; Batgirl isn’t the only one. On the other hand, the Streaming Wars can be exhausting and it’s probably better for customers that movies and shows appear in more than one place. Options are good. And if that’s also better for WBD’s bottom line, I’m not going to fuss over it.

What do you think? Is this a desperation move on the part of Warner Bros. Discovery, or are they ahead of the curve?

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