Ever since he became CEO of WB Discovery, David Zaslav has become one of the biggest villains of the internet, with him infamously scrapping finished projects like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme—much to the ire of the projects’ creators and their fans.
With Zaslav being constantly under fire for scrapping films for the tax write-offs, The Verge (via @DiscussingFilm) has gotten a statement from Zaslav justifying his actions saying, “What content is going to help us win? The content that wasn’t, we made a strategic decision on. It was difficult & painful… But it was necessary.”
Already the internet is roasting Zaslav for what some are saying is tone-deaf commentary on his actions. People are posting things like this replying to the statement:
Courage? All David zaslav cared about was the money. He didn’t care about the creatives or the actors that were involved with batgirl. And people were genuinely excited about this film. This could’ve made WB money.
— Ayman (@GuyWhoConquers) November 29, 2023
You claim it took courage to scrap these films Zaslav, but you've also broken the trust and courage of several filmmakers by scrapping these films and most of them will likely not want to ever work for your studio again. I say this with all sincerity, sit and spin. https://t.co/7iO25xu6WB
— Animated Antic (@Animated_Antic) November 29, 2023
The CEO’s actions have currently put WB Pictures in a bad light when it comes to the industry, and just recently it was reported that several creatives had cancelled their meetings with WB in fear that what Zaslav has done to several projects could also happen to them for the tax write-off.
If anything, WB did allow the directors of the scrapped Coyote vs. Acme movie to shop the film out to other vendors; proving that studios can also get pressured into doing the right thing with enough cyberbullying.
We don’t know what Zaslav is going to do next, but as it stands, WB Pictures is being considered a broken car being picked apart for scraps.
