Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav came to Las Vegas to put all of his chips on movie theaters.
The executive made an appearance at CinemaCon, the annual convention of theatrical exhibitors, to reassure the crowd that the Warner Bros. Pictures Group was not interested in releasing its premium movies directly to streaming platform Max.
“At Warner Bros., at DC Studios, we believe that everything is possible. This business could be bigger and stronger than its ever been,” Zaslav said on stage at Caesar’s Palace on Tuesday. “We believe in full windowing of the motion pictures. We do not want to do direct-to-streaming movies. We’re in no rush to bring the movie to Max.”
Zaslav praised his newly-installed leaders Mike De Luca and Pamela Abdy at Warner Bros., as well as James Gunn and Peter Safran at DC. He bemoaned that Warners only had six films on its release calendar when he arrived to the C-suite. This coming year, the company will release 14. Zaslav said they hope to get to 20 wide theatrical releases per year.
The crowd — populated by top brass and general managers from chains like AMC and Regal — predictably applauded and hollered for the commitment from Zaslav.
Zaslav has made his thoughts on shattering theatrical windows clear in the past. Last April, just after he took the reins at the combined Warner Bros. Discovery, he was asked by analysts if such radical changes were necessary for feature films.
“The data is starting to show ‘no way,’” he said. Zaslav added that the conventional path movies take after the exhibition window should be preserved.
“When you open a movie in theaters, it has a whole stream of monetization. More importantly, it’s marketed. It builds a brand so when it does go to a streaming service there’s a view that [the title] has a higher quality that benefits the streaming service,” he said.
Zaslav’s comments were a dramatic — and many would argue, necessary — shift from the previous corporate regime. Movie stars and filmmakers (and their agents) went ballistic when former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar autonomously decided to release all of Warner Bros.’ 2021 film slate on HBO Max.
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