Perhaps WarnerMedia should’ve consulted some of their partners before the game-changing decision to release all 2021 WB films on HBO Max and in theaters? We’ve already seen that Legendary Pictures may threaten legal action over the move since they co-produced Godzilla vs. Kong and Dune. Now, the filmmaker we’ve all wanted to hear from most, Christopher Nolan, has spoken up and he’s definitely not happy.
Nolan, who is so committed to the theatrical experience that he released Tenet in the middle of a box office-killing pandemic, gave a statement to THR in which he calls HBO Max the “worst streaming service.” Ouch.
“Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”
“Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak,” he continued. “They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”
Continuing on an interview with ET Online, Nolan also argues that WB should’ve talked to the people they work with most before committing to something like this…
“There’s such controversy around it, because they didn’t tell anyone. It’s very, very, very, very messy. A real bait and switch. Yeah, it’s sort of not how you treat filmmakers and stars and people who, these guys have given a lot for these projects. They deserved to be consulted and spoken to about what was going to happen to their work.”
Maybe committing to the entirety of 2021 was a mistake by WarnerMedia. Perhaps taking a quarterly or even project-by-project approach would’ve been more prudent so as not to overturn so much at once.
