Hogwarts Legacy Sequel One of 'Biggest Priorities' at Warner Bros., Studio Says
Amid a 41 percent YoY decline in games revenue in the second quarter of 2024, the commercial disaster that was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and reported layoffs, Warner Bros. needs a hit. And the publisher is reportedly looking at the Hogwarts Legacy sequel to deliver it for them. A follow up to the highest selling game of 2023 is one of the biggest priorities for the studio, a Warner Bros. Discovery executive said this week.
Speaking at a conference Wednesday (via Variety), Warner Bros. Discovery's chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said that a direct sequel to Hogwarts Legacy was a goal for the studio in the coming years.
“Obviously, a successor to ‘Hogwarts Legacy' is one of the biggest priorities in a couple of years down the road,” Wiedenfels reportedly said at the Bank of America's 2024 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference. “So there is certainly a significant growth contribution from that [games] business in our strategic outlook here,” he added.
It's no surprise Warner Bros. Is setting high expectations with the Hogwarts Legacy sequel. The Wizarding World game from Avalanche Software was the biggest hit of 2023, selling over 22 million copies by the end of the year. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad had claimed earlier this year that the game sold two million copies during the Christmas holiday season alone.
Warner Bros. Games, however, has struggled to replicate — or even come near — that kind of success with its subsequent releases. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the studio's tentpole triple-A launch this year, was a critical and commercial failure that led to the company taking a $200 million loss. “Games revenue declined significantly due to the success of Hogwarts Legacy in the prior year quarter, while this year's Q1 release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League generated significantly lower revenues,” Warner Bros. said in its Q1 2024 earnings report.
In the second quarter of this
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