Warner Bros. Will Rent Out Batman & Other Iconic Characters In Shocking New Initiative

Warner Bros. Discovery announced a new initiative called “WBD Storyverse” on Wednesday, allowing characters from the company’s biggest franchises to be licensed for ad campaigns. The news broke at WBD’s upfront presentation, with the examples that Batman, Harry Potter, and even Buddy the Elf might be showing up in commercials soon. Exciting as the news is for advertisers, it was mostly a source of mockery for fans and critics on social media, especially when taken alongside WBD’s other announcements on Wednesday. Many saw it as a bad sign that the company is willing to “rent out” these characters and IPs, but WBD executives framed it as a positive shift.

“Audiences have a deep connection to our stories, and we want to offer that connectivity in service to our partners,” said WBD executive Sheereen Russell at Wednesday’s presentation, according to a report by Variety. “By blending fresh ideas with the familiarity of our beloved worlds and characters, we empower marketers to spark cultural conversations and delight consumers with meaningful moments.”

The announcement referenced a wide array of WBD titles, including sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory, Family Matters, and Friends. It’s unclear how the characters or ensembles from these shows might make it into ads. The company also mentioned The Matrix, and the whole wide world of DC Comics superheroes.

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Of course, characters from TV and movies have been integrated into ads plenty of times before, usually without this much fanfare or a corporate initiative to accompany it. Fans speculated that this news was meant more for advertisers than consumers, and they wished it had stayed that way. The difference between this and previous agreements seems to be streamlined simplicity, allowing advertisers to gain the rights for use on various platforms all at once, with an understandable bottom-line price rather than a series of meetings.

Sadly, this was one of the biggest stories from WBD’s upfront presentation, and there wasn’t much for fans themselves to get excited about. A new Superman trailer dropped on Wednesday, but other than that, the company announced yet another rebrand for its streaming service, which will revert to its old name, HBO Max. It also revealed that the new Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, has been delayed to 2026.

All of this was presented through an optimistic lens on Wednesday, but fans are already bending the tone to their own purposes in social media commentary. As the jokes settle, the studio has some big titles to win back fans’ favor in the months to come.