Sir Peter Jackson on the set of The Hobbit. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Sir Peter Jackson on the set of The Hobbit. Photo / Mark Mitchell
An alleged former Warner Bros. employee has penned a scathing open letter about the studio's leadership and top filmmakers - including New Zealander Peter Jackson.
The letter gained immediate attention online after it laid the blame for recent flops and a spate of lay-offs squarely at the feet of management - including a message to the CEO Kevin Tsujihara: "I wish to God you were forced to live out of a car until you made a #1 movie of the year."
It comes after Warner Bros. movies Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice attracted negative reviews and underperformed despite having record-breaking opening weekends.
Kevin Tsujihara. Photo / Bloomberg
Writing under the name Gracie Law, the name of a character in Big Trouble in Little China, the author said after seeing Suicide Squad she finally decided to finish the letter that she began a year ago after seeing Man of Steel.
"You, your executive team, and the vision of your 'extraordinary storytellers' that resulted in the loss of around one thousand jobs seem intent on crashing the ship into as much s- as you can find in the ocean by making inane decisions over and over again," wrote Law, who said she worked at when there were up to 1000 jobs lost.
She labelled Adam Sandler's Blended and Clint Eastwood's Jersey Boys "failures" and said the studio "botched the release" Edge of Tomorrow and Man From UNCLE.
Still image from the movie Blended. Photo / Supplied
"We dug in our heels and hoped The Hobbit Trilogy would somehow stop being a mediocre case of diminishing returns. Talented, loyal people packed their boxes and went home while your story tellers dropped the ball," she said.
Actor and director Clint Eastwood. photo / AP
She said Zack Snyder - director of Batman V Superman and the yet-to-be released Justice League was not delivering, but was not being punished - while at the same time assistants and those in finance, marketing and IT were being laid off.
"You and your studio are the biggest lesson about life one can learn: The top screws up and the bottom suffers," she said.
"Peter Jackson phones it in and a marketing supervisor has to figure out a plan B for house payments."
The letter ended with a swing and the upcoming Wonder Woman film, saying those inside had confirmed it was also a mess.
"What are you even doing?"
"It is almost impressive how you keep rewarding the same producers and executives for making the same mistakes, over and over.
"If I worked at a doughnut stand, and I kept f-ing up doughnuts, I'd be fired. "Even if I made a tiny decent one every now and then, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna get fired."
