The CEO of WarnerMedia concedes that the way the studio handled its controversial HBO Max release strategy could have gone better.
Few decisions made by a major Hollywood studio have gone down quite as badly with filmmakers in the last year than Warner Bros’ infamous HBO Max announcement of last year. It announced a strategy of releasing its entire 2021 slate of big screen releases simultaneously on its HBO Max streaming service in the US, and it went down with some filmmakers like the proverbial fart in a car.
It certainly seemed to cost the studio its 20 year relationship with Christopher Nolan, and other directors weren’t said to be on the happy side. And now, the CEO of WarnerMedia – Jason Kilar – has conceded that mistakes were made in the deployment of the policy.
Chatting at the Vox Media Code Conference, he said that “I will be the first one to say, and the responsibility rests on my shoulders, that, in hindsight, we should have taken the better part of a month to have over 170 conversations — which is the number of participants that are in our 2021 film slate”. Instead, Warners tried to implement everything in under a week, and it caused, well, problems.
On the flip side, Kilar insists that the strategy was a successful one. That as a fast response to the situation brought about by the pandemic, it worked. “We’re now in a very good situation”, he insisted. The studio will return to a 45-day cinema window from next year too.
You can read more about his comments,
here. HBO Max begins its European rollout – albeit not in the UK – later this year.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
Related Stories
- When James Gunn denies The Batman II has been cancelled…
James Gunn has denied The Batman Part II has been cancelled, leading some to inevitably think The Batman Part II has been cancelled.
There’s an obvious problem here. A report popped up overnight that Warner Bros had cancelled Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman Part II. It’s been cemented for some time, even as the DC universe [...]
- Welcome To Derry | Andy Muschietti teases two more planned seasons
Director Andy Muschietti has been chatting about the upcoming IT prequel show Welcome To Derry, and there might be more than one season coming our way.
There’s still no firm release date for Welcome To Derry, Warner Bros.’ IT prequel show that’s supposedly releasing this year after a delay or two. In fact, we don’t even [...]
- Weapons | Warner Bros set to release Zach Cregger’s film early
Positive test screenings for Zach Cregger's second film Weapons will reportedly see it released in 2025 instead of 2026.
Ever since Zach Cregger's debut, Barbarian (pictured above) released in cinemas in 2022 and quickly became one of the most talked-about horror flicks of the year, anticipation has been high for the filmmaker's second outing as director. [...]
- Warner Bros reveals release slots for raft of 2025 TV shows
Warner Bros reveals release windows for some of its most hotly-anticipated TV shows, albeit leaving details to be filled in.
Warner Bros has several sizeable TV shows on its slate for 2025, and it's started to offer hints as to just when we're going to get them
First up, we now know that series three of Mike [...]
- Warner Bros | Big shake-up underway behind the scenes
Changes at senior levels within Warner Bros are announced, following a disappointing year at the global box office.
Warner Bros Discovery, under the stewardship of its current boss David Zaslav, has endured a difficult few years. Zaslav’s ruthless costcutting has led, infamously, to the abandonment of completed feature films as tax write-offs to improve the short [...]
