Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Embraces the Past as He Plans His Company's Future

But he's also committed to spending"significantly more" on HBO Max and adding Discovery programming to the streaming service.

Kilar made waves during the pandemic by deciding to put his entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max at the same time movies hit theaters. While that turned out to be a temporary move, Kilar later stood by the decision as simply the first to shift.with Deadline."It worked. We were the first over the wall." Zaslav on Thursday, in stark contrast, made a point to emphasize the importance of theatrical release for big-budget movies by scrappingwhich Kilar had ticketed to launch directly on HBO Max. Launching expensive movies directly to streaming doesn't make economic sense, Zaslav said."Batgirl" cost $90 million to make.

"Our conclusion is expensive direct-to-streaming movies, in terms of how people are consuming them on the platform, how often people buy a service for them, how they get nourished over time, is no comparison to what happens when you launch a film in the theaters," Zaslav said."This idea of expensive films going direct to streaming, we can't find an economic value for it, and so we're making a strategic shift.

Zaslav said Thursday he believed the strength of live news is on traditional pay-TV rather than streaming. That suggests CNN live programming won't be going to the HBO Max/Discovery+ product when it launches, or any time soon.Choosing to push HBO Max while also trying to slow the decline of box office and linear pay-TV is a juggling act. But it's also the plight of the modern media CEO. Moving too far into the future cannibalizes cash-flow positive businesses.

Who cares, I wanna know what stock Jim Cramer thinks I should buy!

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