Ryan Coogler is a brilliant director. The man behind “Creed” (2015) and the “Black Panther” series has proven he can craft a quality film while still delivering at the box office. That’s why Warner Bros. is putting everything it has behind his upcoming original film “Sinners,” which not only has a budget as high as $90 million but also includes a special deal with Coogler where the rights to “Sinners” as an intellectual property eventually revert back to him.

It’s a risky bet from Warner Bros. studio heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, who have put everything they have on original films from A-list filmmakers like Coogler and might lose their jobs for it.  The smash hit “A Minecraft Movie” has bought them some time, but ahead of “Sinners” on April 18 and the many original projects that will follow, we need to highlight the drawbacks of De Luca and Abdy’s auteur-first approach.

However, a warning: This is purely a discussion about business. If you want to talk about whether good directors make good movies (spoiler alert: yeah, probably), you’re better off reading a different column or stumbling into the School of Cinematic Arts.

If you were to ask De Luca and Abdy for a film that backs up their approach, they’d probably point right to “Barbie” (2023). Writer-director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach created a feminist comedy that simultaneously celebrated and eviscerated the iconic doll, resulting in a $1.4 billion box-office sensation. 

Of course, there are a few problems with the “Barbie” case study. First of all, “Barbie” is based on a crown jewel of IP and starred a pair of A-listers in Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Plus, the film was rocket-powered by one of the best marketing campaigns of the 2020s, the viral “I’m Just Ken,” the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon and a killer soundtrack album that featured everyone from Nicki Minaj to Billie Eilish. In other words, the success of “Barbie” simply cannot be replicated.

This is where we arrive at possibly the best counterargument for “Barbie,” and coincidentally, it’s another Warner Bros. joint: the recent “Mickey 17.” Take Bong Joon-ho, the Oscar-winning director of “Parasite” (2019), pair him up with star Robert Pattinson and tackle a science-fiction epic! What could go wrong, right?

It turns out that “Mickey 17” tanked, even in a weak box office. As of April 15, the movie has grossed $130 million worldwide against a staggering budget of $118 million, and that’s without factoring in the marketing costs for a giant blockbuster like this one. Sure, Warner Bros. still turned a slight profit, but in a wide-open March at the box office that saw possible challengers like “Snow White” and “Novocaine” fizzle out on arrival, returns could have been a lot higher. 

This situation could have been avoided, or at least helped somewhat. Joon-ho was adapting a brand-new IP based on a 2022 novel instead of a known commodity like “Barbie,” and a release slot just days after the end of the consistently dull Dumpuary period didn’t help. 

That said, the fundamental argument for greenlighting “Mickey 17” is, in the minds of De Luca and Abdy, the exact same as “Barbie.” But if a studio gives a visionary the reins, a massive budget and the ability to make whatever they want, that doesn’t mean a film will automatically get runaway success. Even in the case of “Barbie,” the entire studio had to work hard for its dominant run and got quite lucky along the way.

While Warner Bros. has a slate that personally intrigues me more than almost any other major studio, it seems that “Barbie” has been adopted as a blueprint instead of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that’s a dangerous assumption.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” is set for a September release and boasts star Leonardo DiCaprio, but it’s a completely original project with a mind-boggling reported budget of $130 million, all for a filmmaker whose highest-grossing film to date was just $76 million. 

There’s “The Bride!” from relative newcomer Maggie Gyllenhaal, an $80 million subversion of the “Frankenstein” franchise and a question mark so huge it’s been delayed into March 2026 — the “Mickey 17” slot. 

Other bets like “Saltburn” (2023) director Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” adaptation feel safer, but Warner Bros. doesn’t have enough reliable bets to back up all this spending, and rival studios just have a better approach here. Disney fills its slate with Marvel projects, animated sequels and “Avatar” movies to allow for bets like “Tron: Ares.” 

Just in case the “Wicked” duology didn’t work out as planned, Universal sandwiched the two films between a new entry in the known box-office juggernaut “Jurassic World” franchise.

But for Warner Bros., it’s high risk with no reward in sight. While another “Dune” sequel and other safe bets are still in the works, the studio may need to refocus on those — and fast. If “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” are just sequels to “Mickey 17” at the box office, it may not be long before Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy receive a rather unfriendly call.

Sammy Bovitz is a sophomore writing about the business of film. His column, “Boardrooms & Blockbusters,” runs every other Friday. He is also a magazine editor at the Daily Trojan.