In joint public statements by Writers Guild of America West President Meredith Stiehm and Directors Guild of America President Lesli Linka Glatter, both organizations denounced Warner Bros. Discovery for Max’s “devaluation of artists’ individual contributions”.
“For nearly 90 years, the Directors Guild has fought fiercely to protect the credit and recognition its directors deserve for the work they create,” said Glatter, insisting that what happened to Max is part of a pattern that the unions are trying to push back. . “The unilateral move by Warner Bros. Discovery, without prior notice or consultation, to drop directors, writers, producers and others into a generic category of “creators” in their new Max rollout while we are negotiating with them is a grave insult to our members and our union.”
Stiehm added that, in addition to being an outright violation of the credits, Max’s “diminishing” creator title is “disrespectful and offensive to the artists who make the movies and TV shows that and [sic] make their company billions.”
“This effort to reduce writers’ contributions and importance echoes the message we heard during our negotiations with AMPTP – that writers are marginal and unimportant and simply have to accept being paid less and less, while our employers’ profits keep shrinking. get higher,” says Stiehm. said. “This tone-deaf disregard for the best interests of writers has brought us to where we are today – day 22 of our strike.”
When we contacted Warner Bros. Discovery for comment about the backlash against Max, a representative issued a standard statement stating, “We agree that the talent behind Max’s content deserves to have their work properly recognized.”
“We will correct the credits, which have been changed due to an error in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max and apologize for this error,” the statement said.
It’s entirely possible that during all the work that went into remaking HBO Max and chopping off the most recognizable part of its brand name, someone’s finger somehow slipped, shall we say, exposing data from the old platform were not transferred correctly.
But it feels more plausible that someone (or a boardroom full of someone) at Warner Bros. Discovery just thought that people just wouldn’t notice his attempt to encourage the public to think of everyone who makes movies as unremarkable creation machines instead of people. who are now on strike and fighting to get paid what they owe.
Revelation: The edgeThe editorial board is also affiliated with the Writers Guild of America, East.
