To be honest, the fact studio interference did that really confirms my theory that Warner Bros is probably a movie studio that has possibly reached levels of stupidity that makes Sony look like Steven Hawking. Most of their 2010 film outings they put a lot of investment in are based on really dumb ideas and are out of touch.
The best example of Warner Bros being stupid is that they made a green lantern movie because they thought people loved the 2008 Iron Man movie solely because of the plane sequence.
Hell I won't be surprised they'll blame 2D animation for Space Jam 2 not doing so well as Warner Bros is known for blaming dumb shit for their movies failing far more often than other studios.
For Blockbusters, 010-2020 WB had stuff like Mad Max Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049, Edge of Tomorrow, so one of the better line up and in no way worse than Sony especially Amy Pascal era sony.
Not to say WB hasn't been dumb, here are a few of the fuck ups from that era not even going into the whole DCU mess
Green Lantern, wasn't a bad idea to make a movie especially after Iron Man did well, but the movie was just shit and the sad thing is, I think would have done better if the cgi suit didn't look so awful, the eyes look even creepy on the movie posters and was all anyone could talk about in the lead up rather than the movie its self.
Lego Movie: First does well, then they milked the shit out of it too fast, had they space them out and didn't do the lego ninjago, pretty sure Lego Movie 2 would have done well and they wouldn't have lost the license
Fantastic Beasts movies: they brought back David Yates the blandest director of the Harry Potter movies, but people seemed to enjoy the first movie until the ending, with people being burnt out on Johny Deep playing weirdos at the time and people not wanting it to tie into Harry Potter in some big way. They could have course-corrected on the follow-up by making the series just stand-alone movies but they didn't and it made $150 million less.
The 15:17 to Paris: Soon as Clint Eastwood wanted to cast the real people in the movie, should have cancelled the movie after that.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: King Arthur movies haven't been hits for a long time, and on top of that they got Guy Ritchie to try and update it, end production feels like something that would have come out in the early 2000s and pretty clear from this and Aladdin that Guy Ritchie isn't good at heavy special effect movies. You would think WB would have looked at the other attempts to update classic British stories and realised the market isn't there for them. Also was planned to be a cinematic universe.
The Legend of Tarzan: this wasn't a total flop, issue is the movie is very bland and dull, and it's pretty much all on the directing which is David Yates. I feel like you just replaced him but kept the script, cast and such the same you could get a much more entertaining movie.
Jupiter Ascending: Do the Wachowski's have dirt on WB. Matrix ended in 2003 at this point, and they had yet to make another hit for WB within all that time. A script reading should have been all that was needed for WB not to go forward with this movie.
Transcendence: Pretty clear WB thought Wally Pfister who was the cinematographer for most of Nolan's movies would well be the next Nolan with this movie, on face value it seemed like a safe bet. But the script itself had good ideas but wasn't good itself, was way over budget ($150 to $100 million for something that should have been mid-budget) and cast Johny Depp when people were starting to get sick of him, also worth noting Johnny Deep got $20 million for this. It pretty much killed Wally Pfister career in making movies, which is sad because he didn't do an awful job himself.
Jack the Giant Slayer: A $200 million Jack and Beanstalk movie, why on earth would anyone think that is a good idea, I'm shocked it even grossed $197 million at the box-office,.
I honestly could make similar lists for most of the big studios. However, an issue I found common in WB is that they will have a hit such as San Andreas ($110 million budget vs $475 million gross), Rampage ($120-140 million budget vs $428 million gross) and Detective Pikachu ($150 million budget vs $433 gross), all these movies have been profitable, well-liked by general audiences and the teams behind them have wanted to make follow-ups, but they never seem to get past the starting line. I don't get leaving that type of money on the table, not like any of them need a deep script or anything but yet if San Andrease which came out in 2015 gets a follow up now, would anyone even care now 6+ years would have passed?
But to your point about 2d animation, unless it was a monster hit which with covid it never was going to be, doubt 2d animated movies for the cinema were ever on WB plans.