Warner Media/Discovery joint venture; thoughts and discussion

Kreators?

Dont be fooled Donkey Kong! Those arent the real credits!

Pretty much the same thing my local library does, where their catalog lets you search for stuff my author, which is pretty straightforward for books, but for their DVD collection means directors, writers, and actors are all listed under the same cateogry.

What? Listing everyone involved with the creation of media as a Creator/ despite their role be they writer, director, actor, etc?

What kind of madness is this?!? Surely no self-respecting website would do such a thing?!?

I want to note that this could easily be a pretty huge breach of contract. Right before the DGA holds a vote to potentially authorize a strike.

DGA?

Director's Guild of America, I assume.

Yeah. Basically, the contracts for people in Hollywood tend to have some really specific required language for how they're credited. Like a director can only be credited as a director. You can't credit them as a "creator" because the contract does not include that in the list of acceptable titles. This is similar to how you see actors get the "and starring" credit or the "also featuring" credit. It's literally in their contracts that they have to be referred to like that. For actors though, there's some wiggle room when it's just a list of actors separate from the actual product, but directors don't have that leeway.

The "created by" credit is also a really specific one that can't be transferred. Like, you can't credit JJ Abrams with "created by" for his Star Trek movies because he didn't create Star Trek.

WBD doing this actually creates grounds to sue.

I hope they get sued then.

I think that only applies to the credits contained in the actual movie/episode, not to promotional material.

DGA and WGA are both really pissed about this. Don’t be surprised if a directors’ strike happens anytime soon.

Oh boy! I sure hope this teaches WBD a lesson!

So this is the “equality” Zaslav said in that university speech.

I don't think that's actually true. Especially since "creator" is a specific credit. This is also a situation where there's no clear reason to credit people this way beyond trying to actively devalue individual contributions.

This is also already seriously ticking off the DGA for real and it's pushed them a lot closer to just siding with the WGA. It's WBD jumping the gun, again, and making it blatantly obvious that they have no respect at all for any of the people who make the stuff they depend on and they're doing this a month before the DGA and SAG contracts expire.

It's reminding me of why Verizon became a pariah among telecom companies for a while. Verizon spent about two years a few years back constantly trying to push the line on what was acceptable or not and demanding the FCC make rulings and it literally always backfired on them and interfered with the other companies. WBD is basically doing that where they keep making it blatantly obvious what they want to do and is refusing to understand how they don't actually have the strong position here.

Edited by Zendervai on May 24th 2023 at 2:01:00 PM

Per Variety, Max walked it back fast, claiming "technical oversight".

I wish I was credited for "Creating" Raging Bull lol.

Crediting rules in marketing is also a thing, leading to stuff like Misplaced-Names Poster when first billing conflicts with the lead actor being in the center. WBD really stepped in it. Messing with their credits really invites the Directors Guild to strike too.

So how long until WBD causes the Screen Actors Guild to strike?

Wow I am now actively desiring for WBD to piss literally everyone off so change can occurr lol.

50% on this being another straw that breaks the camel's back on Zaslav after how quick they reversed it.

I can't stand the "Max" logo. All three letters look like they're from completely different fonts.

I hate the blue and white coloring on it. Makes the service scream out not in a good way.

Does anyone know how many people have followed through with subscribing to Max now that it exists?

Given that the SAG has ALREADY voted to strike if they don't get a deal they like, not very long.

In an interview with Variety, Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick says there were plans to buy Time Warner in 2018.

I don't know which one would have been worse.

Warner Bros in talks to license HBO shows to Netflix. Plans are not finalized.

So what's the point of them having their own service, exactly?