At this point, it seems like a safer question to wonder who Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav hasn’t pissed off in the industry. Not only did he just save money on taxes by scrapping finished films like Batgirl and a Scoob! Holiday Special, but now he seems to have been quite vocal about his displeasure with other streaming deals. Ironic given that he seemingly is moving away from HBO Max to focus on outsourcing what they have to offer.
The reaction seems to come from the contract as part of Netflix’s renewal of The Sandman for a second season. Zaslav is seemingly unhappy with how the deal is structured in how producers are paid across multiple months. They have quite a few projects with Netflix like Sweet Tooth, Manifest, You, and more. Instead of re-evaluating the contracts for future projects, he just outright has paused for any further deals to be made for finished shows moving forward.
It’s strange, as it’s not only a business practice at this point but just didn’t agree with the terms already agreed upon. Zaslav is very hands on in the deal-making, for better and for worse going by recent experiences. Warner Bros. is also no stranger to strange payment models, and it does raise the question why this wasn’t reviewed before moving away from its own streaming service to outsourcing their projects moving forward. Here’shoping this doesn’t end up leading to consequences on any of their co-produced projects.
Source: Deadline
