As Paramount closes in on its mega-deal for Warner Bros. Discovery, Warners’ film team is not letting the uncertainty change how they do their jobs, according to co-chair and CEO Pam Abdy.
Speaking at the CNBC Changemakers event in lower Manhattan Thursday alongside Practical Magic 2 star and producer Sandra Bullock, Abdy said that she and her co-CEO Mike De Luca are already greenlighting projects that won’t debut until 2028 and 2029, and are working to keep the staff at the studio engaged.
“As a leader, I have a job to do every day. I have people that show up passionate and have a lot of work to do,” Abdy said. “So our whole entire ’26 slate is about to come out. We’re finishing up there, getting all the marketing campaigns ready. We have our entire ’27 slate that’s already locked and loaded, shooting, and we’re planning now. Mike and I are greenlighting movies for ’28 and ’29 right now. Like everything, we will have to see what happens. It’s in the regulatory process. There’s nothing to do today other than do our job. And my job and Mike’s job, we are responsible for showing up, keeping everybody motivated, excited, passionate to help build slates, make sure they have all — they have all the resources they need to market these films and to make these films. And that’s what I do every day.”
“Warner Bros. did increase its value once this team stepped in,” said Bullock, when moderator Julia Boorstin asked about the deal. “So I feel that they are responsible for such a large transaction that may or may not occur. I think the value is there because of the content.”
That content will include the follow-up to the 1998 film, which will reuinite Bullock and co-star Nicole Kidman.
Bullock revealed that she had resisted multiple attempts to do a sequel, until she got an idea for what the second film could be.
“Pam and Mike had reached out, saying, ‘Look, we really want to make Practical Magic 2.’ I said, ‘It’s not the right time,’ and then I called Denise Di Novi, our producing partner,” Bullock recalled. “We’d produced the first one together. And I said: ‘I have an idea about what I think Practical Magic 2 should be and what we can say.’ And when I told her everything, she goes: ‘That’s already in the second book [by author Alice Hoffman].’ And so that made me excited.”
Abdy said that while the first film was not deemed a box office success (it garnered $68 million on a $75 million budget), Warners had caught wind of how the film had found a second life thanks to streaming and online fandoms.
“Movies last for generations, and this particular film has grown over the years. It’s generational, mothers and daughters,” Abdy said. “Because of social media and because of the way people can start to find different kinds of stories, people start trading ideas about Practical Magic. There’s midnight margarita parties. People are doing their bridal showers dressed as the Owens sisters. People are getting dressed up every Halloween. It’s one of our number one films that goes to the top of the list every Halloween on HBO Max, where our movies have another life after theatrical. So there were so many different elements.”
But the reality of today’s Hollywood economics also played a role, Bullock ackncolwedged.
“Because of schedules, and it benefited the film, we shot in London, where the tax incentives were so great for the film,” Bullock said. “We could make the film emotionally and visually that we wanted to make for a price that Warner Bros. could afford.”
“I believe it was meant that we were to come into each other’s lives at this time,” Abdy said of Bullock and the film. “I love this movie. This movie is about sisterhood. This movie is about being there for the next generation. This is about truth. It’s about when you sometimes tell lies to protect people, that may not be the right path and then you have to go set on the right path. The movie is so thematically rich, and I think has never been more urgent than to tell this kind of story about community, about family and about sisterhood than the times we’re living in.”
But Bullock also celebrated Abdy, who was named to CNBC’s Changemakers list.
“She’s honest. She’s an Italian pit bull,” Bullock said of Abdy. “There’s no politicking with you. It is transparent, honest and clear so everyone can do their best job. If she says, ‘We need to cut X amount of dollars out,’ it’s not superfluous. We go, she’s telling us this because we need to cut it in order to remain on track. You know exactly where she’s coming from. And honesty these days is very hard to come by. And they were honest in the room. And I felt creative and excited again.”
“I have developed a style for myself where I just feel like the only way to lead is to be honest, to be transparent, to give quick answers,” Abdy said. “I don’t get to deliver good news all the time. In fact, most of the time, I’m delivering tough news. But I think the faster I can get with the talent, with our team, with the leaders of all of our different divisions and tell them what is expected, what we need, how we need to accomplish something, and the more transparent I can be, the better. Because they can’t do their best work if I’m not being honest.”
