Following the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery, a new lawsuit has claimed that the company misled shareholders and bumped up its HBO Max subscriber numbers by ten million. 

The lawsuit was filed by a shareholder who, following the merger, agreed to trade in his Discovery shares for Warner Bros. Discovery shares instead. 

At the time of the merger, shares were $24.78US. As of Tuesday 27th September, the shares were worth around $11US. 

“WarnerMedia was improvidently concentrating its investments in streaming and ignoring its other business lines,” the suit reads. “[They] overstated the number of subscribers to HBO Max by as many as ten million subscribers, by including as subscribers AT&T customers who received bundled access to HBO Max, but had not signed onto the service.”

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AT&T was the previous parent company of Warner Bros. who are more commonly known for telecommunication services. The company only owned Warner Bros. for four years before deciding to let go of the business for $43 billion dollars.  

The suit also stated that “AT&T was overinvesting in WarnerMedia entertainment content for streaming, without sufficient concern for return on investments.”

This concern has been at the centre of Warner Bros. Discovery’s mass project cancellation. In an effort to balance the books, the company has been dropping films and series to instead claim them as tax write-offs. 

Most notably was the Batgirl film that starred Leslie Grace, Michael Keaton, J.K. Simmons and Brendan Fraser. The completed movie was expected to hit HBO Max next year but was unexpectedly shelved, unbeknownst to its cast and crew. 

More recently, the animated series Final Space was announced to be pulled from all its platforms. 

“Five years of my life. Three seasons of TV. Blood, sweat, and tears… Became a tax write-off for the network who owns Final Space,” said creator Olan Rogers. “It’s been hard because it’s just so absurd. Like a tax write-off, really?”

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