Warner Bros. Discovery, Cutting Edge to Co-Manage Film/TV Music Rights

Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday (Jan. 31) entered into a joint venture with Cutting Edge Group, an investor and manager of niche media music rights, aimed at generating more revenue from its massive catalog of iconic film and TV songs, including the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.

Cutting Edge, which works with wellness music for hotel spas and orchestral renditions of pop songs for shows like Bridgerton, will jointly manage the new business, while Warner Bros. Discovery will keep creative and operational control of the catalog. Global asset manager DWS Group co-invested and sponsored the transaction with Cutting Edge.

Warner Bros. Discovery previously explored selling part of its catalog and hired famed entertainment attorney Allen Grubman to shop it for as much as $1 billion. The launch of a company dedicated to exploiting the catalog of more than 400,000 compositions and song cues signals its potential value is even higher.

The catalog spans almost 100 years of copyrights, including music from the DC Comics movies, Rebel Without a Cause, The Exorcist, A Star is Born, Blade Runner and Shawshank Redemption; and hit TV shows like Friends, Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, Two and Half Men, Succession, The White Lotus, The West Wing, ER, Full House, Sex & The City and Gossip Girl.

Warner Bros. Discovery was formed in 2022 through the merger of AT&T’s WarnerMedia Unit and Discovery Inc. Universal Music Publishing Group will continue to administer the works from Warner Brothers, HBO and Turner Networks, while the works from Discovery and Scripps will continue to be administered by Sony Music Publishing.

“This partnership … is the perfect way to expand access to our unparalleled music library while honoring our long history of strong creative oversight and protecting the integrity of the works and artists,” Paul Broucek, Warner Bros. Discovery’s president of music, said in a statement.

Cutting Edge head Philip Moross said the joint venture was the result of years of work.

“This truly is an iconic assembly of catalogs created over almost a century by one of Hollywood’s original studios and to have the opportunity to invest in and manage this JV alongside WBD is an incredibly exciting prospect for us,” Moross said.

Cutting Edge said last year it secured a $500 million credit facility from Fifth Third Bank, Northleaf Capital Partners and other banks.

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