David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, addressed employee concerns at a company-wide town hall Zoom on Wednesday (September 28) when he insisted the company was not for sale.
Zaslav and his executive suite are looking to make $3bn in cuts since the merger with WarnerMedia and have already laid of a number of staffers. That has led Hollywood to speculate over a possible move at some point by another media player, with Comcast appearing the most likely.
However according to reports the CEO told WBD’s 40,000 employees who listened in that the company was not on the auction block and had everything it needed to become a success.
Zaslav emphasised the importance of theatrical distribution, adding that the plan was for Warner Bros, now led by recent MGM co-heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, to release 15-20 titles a year in multiple genres.
There was no mention on the call of Batgirl, the theatrical feature that was pulled late in post-production without any apparent plans to release it theatrically or run it on HBO Max in a move that caused sorrow among the film’s talent and fans.
Zaslav’s comments on theatrical distribution echoed the words of WBD’s international head Gerhard Zeiler on Wednesday who said, “Everyone who ever believed that the theatrical business, the cinema, is dead has been proven wrong so many times and will be proved wrong in the future.”
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