Hollywood Strike: Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav Reveals Saving $100Mn Due To The Disputes Leaves Netizens Divided ( Photo Credit – IMDb )
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Since May this year, a series of ongoing labour disputes within the American film industry has been taking place. Nearly 11,500 screenwriters represented by the Writers Guild went on strike after contract negotiations with the studios broke down. Warner Bros Discovery David Zaslav has made a comment about it, and netizens are divided over it.
Several Hollywood actors also joined the strike due to this, major films in production, including the Avatar and Gladiator sequels, are looking likely to be affected. However, Warner Bros is seemingly unaffected by the ongoing strike.
As reported by Variety, Warner Bros Discovery David Zaslav has said that the ongoing double strike has resulted in savings of approximately $100 million for the studio. This revelation was made during the latest earnings call for the company, where the Hollywood producer highlighted the cost-cutting benefits of production shutdowns across his studio.
By not compensating actors and writers for their work, the company seems to be capitalising on the opportunity to retain the money for itself. David Zaslav’s statement is now going viral on Reddit. While some netizens are not happy about it, some supported the studios. Take a look at the post below:
As the post goes viral, a user commented, “I really am sympathetic to the writers and actors in a lot of aspects of this matter. On the other hand, I can’t find a single redeeming quality about these Hollywood studios, including the fact that they enabled some of the most obnoxious writers and actors to take up their positions of prominence. Are those crappy She-Hulk writers complaining about getting paid a ham sandwich for writing a single episode? Well, the studios get what they pay for and the fans suffer.”
Another user wrote, “I’m not, I look at it this way. Like everyone else they have been paid to do a job, they did the job and they got paid. Now they are expecting that they should get paid again – never mind the fact that the studio that paid them for the work has to stay in business too.”
A third user wrote, “I don’t think it’s the same like that? The mechanic was paid for his one-time service. Actors are seen and associated with the work every time as they are the “face” of that movie. In your mechanic allegory, the actors are the cars, not the repairs done to it. For it to be the same comparison, then the movie that was paid for one time should only be shown that one time.” A fourth user countered it, “The fact of the matter is that they were paid a fixed amount for a fixed contract, that contract is fulfilled they have been paid – they don’t get a second bite at the cherry – that is not how life works. The fact of the matter is AI is coming along, and the only reason residuals are even being talked about now is actors and writers know their jobs can be replaced at any moment by AI.”
