After a disastrous first day, which saw their new streaming service Max crash, Warner Bros. Discovery is now under fire for a particularly egregious move apparently determined to wipe out all credit from certain members of the creative team on films and television shows.
Previously, HBO Max – the service’s ‘new and improved’ predecessor, included credits pages with specific details about the roles writers and directors played in the production of shows and features. Now, however, the company has decided to bring together the “creators” of each project without giving them credit for their responsibilities.
Raging Bull And The Silence of the Lambs are some of the films influenced by this curious new choice. Once the change to the credits became apparent, many writers, directors, and creative members of the production spoke of their disdain and disdain for the decision – having to endure adding a ‘skip intro’ option to content on the platform has often seen audiences miss out on the credits completely.
What Does the Author Say About These Changes?
Steven DeKnightwho has been involved with several series including Spartacus, Daredevil, Dollhouse And Smallvilledescribed the change as “an absolute masterclass on how to screw up streaming services”, while Nora ZuckermanPeacock’s host Poker facetagged the Writers’ Union of America, along with the Directors’ and Producers’ union for questioning how that could be considered acceptable.
The move from Warner Bros. Discovery looks especially deaf given the ongoing events across entertainment as writers are currently battling to win a fairer share of revenue overall. This move, which could be seen as an attempt to label them as simply “content creators”, appears to diminish their contribution and should not be accepted.
This is another difficult moment for the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav, just two days after he was heckled and heckled while trying to give a speech at Boston University. While trying to read from his prepared remarks, students drown out his words with loud chants of “Pay your writers”. Because their contracts have remained the same over the years, the compensation writers get for their scripts is no longer fair, especially with the advent of streaming failing to pay residuals in the same way.
Stay tuned to Collider for more details on the Max launch, and to see if things get much worse.