{"id":624948,"date":"2026-04-23T03:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:59:12","slug":"warner-bros-pictures-pam-abdy-on-weapons-prequel-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624948\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner Bros. Pictures’ Pam Abdy on ‘Weapons’ Prequel Status"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSince Warner Bros. Pictures<\/a> debuted the teaser trailer for \u201cPractical Magic 2\u201d on Monday<\/a>, the video has racked up nearly 11 million views from fans \u2014 and several calls from marketing teams looking to work some magic of their own.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe just dropped the trailer this week and we\u2019re getting all these calls now for partnerships for that film,\u201d Pam Abdy<\/a>, Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-chair and CEO, said during the Variety Entertainment Marketing Summit presented by Deloitte on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. has been experimenting with different ways to promote its films over the past few years, including selling tickets for \u201cSinners\u201d through a gaming integration on \u201cFortnite\u201d and for \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d via a Pinterest collab. But when it comes to companies approaching them for tie-in products and marketing, the response Abdy is seeing these days is unprecedented. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt just depends,\u201d Abdy told Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton on stage at the Beverly Hilton. \u201cI think what ends up happening is brands see the movies, they see if it works for their audience \u2014 is there a collaboration? That, to me, is super exciting on the marketing level. That I didn\u2019t experience when I started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCurrently, Abdy and her Warner Bros Pictures co-chief Mike De Luca are leading the studio behind recent hits \u201cSinners,\u201d \u201cWeapons\u201d and \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d amid a pending acquisition of the larger Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> by the Skydance-run Paramount. At this time, there\u2019s little Abdy can say about what that means for the future of WB films, even as she and De Luca are greenlighting movies that are years away from hitting the screen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy job is to show up, to be present, to be transparent with our teams, to give them the resources and the support they need to be the best versions of themselves,\u201d Abdy said. \u201cAnd we have a job to do, Mike and I. There\u2019s no time for worrying about things that you can\u2019t control. What we can control is the quality of the films. We can control the films we\u2019re choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne thing Abdy can confirm is that Warner Bros. is very bullish on Zach Cregger\u2019s \u201cWeapons\u201d prequel. The Abdy says the movie, which is set to focus on the viral character Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), is still in the development stage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYes, you can never get it out of your head,\u201d Abdy said about Gladys\u2019 look and how the character dominated the \u201cWeapons\u201d discourse post-release. \u201cAnd people recreating it on social media was hysterical afterwards. But if you remember, we did not show you Aunt Gladys before the movie opened. We let the audience discover Aunt Gladys, and it was this mystery marketing tool that we used with what happened to these kids, so that it almost played like this really happened in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo other priorities for the Warner Bros. film biz are making more \u201cesoteric\u201d films through the newly created Clockwork label, and building up its internal animation studio for more family-friendly fare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe felt like we were missing that space at Warner Brothers,\u201d Abdy said of deciding to launch Clockwork in partnership with Neon vet Christian Parkes. \u201cAnd Mike and I love what A24 and what Neon has done, and Searchlight over the years. I, as a producer, worked at Searchlight many times, and we really feel like, especially because Gen Z and Gen Alpha are engaged [and] do want to go to the theater, that there is a space that we\u2019re missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLater this year, Warner Bros. will show the effort it\u2019s put into its refocused animation business with the release of \u201cThe Cat in the Hat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWarner Bros. [has] made some great animated movies over the years with \u2018The Lego Movie,\u2019 but there wasn\u2019t a consistent strategy,\u201d Abdy said. \u201cSo we built an animation studio from the ground up, and we brought in Bill Damaschke, a longtime veteran of DreamWorks, and he\u2019s incredible, and he has an incredible slate. Our first movie comes online this fall with \u2018The Cat in the Hat,\u2019 and we have movies greenlit and in production all the way through \u201929.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbdy added: \u201cIt has to be part of the strategy, that family business. And that audience is dedicated, and they need more movies to [be able to] take their kids to the theater.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since Warner Bros. Pictures debuted the teaser trailer for \u201cPractical Magic 2\u201d on Monday, the video has racked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,302593,344,302732,95257],"class_list":{"0":"post-624948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-entertainment-marketing-2026-recap","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-pam-abdy","14":"tag-warner-bros-pictures"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}