Ok, well then why didn't they release the movie? Why did they say it would be more profitable to not release it? You're either smarter than the entirety of Warner Brother's finance department, or wrong.
The job of studio executives is to estimate this, and based on that make choices. This is based on some amount of objectiveish data (such as market research and comparative trends) but also has a large component of guesswork. And this guesswork is where his personal preferences can colour his decision making.
In other words if he would know it will make a lot of money he would release it for sure. You are right on that. But it is not known, and perhaps the objective indicators are ambigous or borderline, that is where his personal preferences might make a difference.
If the studio decided not to release the movie it was most likely because the expected marketing and distribution costs exceeded the expected revenue. Or maybe they didn't want a crap movie to damage the long term brand of a valuable character that they plan to leverage in other products.
Anyone who has ever worked with an accountant knows this isn't true. The law is a series of gray areas at best. You can have three accountants do your taxes and get three results, because each applies different interpretations to the laws. And going in front of a judge won't get extra clarity -- three judges would give you three different opinions.
> If the studio decided not to release the movie it was most likely because the expected marketing and distribution costs exceeded the expected revenue.
Maybe, but it tested better with test audiences than any other movie they release this year, so that's highly unlikely. Also, they specifically said they were doing it for the write down.
It’s all gray areas. See my sibling comment about how to write off future profits.
Even if that were a thing, the fact that it would cost more to release it than not shows that the profit value is negative.
> Anyone who has ever worked with an accountant knows this isn't true.
The point being referred to here is that you can't take a deduction for profits you would have made in some hypothetical world where things had worked out better for you. It's not all gray areas, and this particular point is entirely un-gray. Nor does the article that you "tl;dr"'ed into this quip support you here. It just says that the studio decided not to risk any further losses.