If you happened to look to find out who directed that film you liked on Max, you’d be surprised to find that the titles of director, writer, and producer are missing from the details of a title on the service.
Instead, all three of those have been rolled into one role called “creators” for the launch of the service. That has been met with a lot of criticism from the entertainment industry and, basically, anyone who likes movies and TV shows. It’s a bad move, especially to launch the service like that when the industry is in the middle of a writer’s strike.
In a joint statement reported by The Verge, Writers Guild of America West president Meredith Stiehm and Directors Guild of America president Lesli Linka Glatter said that the move by Warner Bros. Discovery was made “without notice or consultation.”
“For almost 90 years, the Directors Guild has fought fiercely to protect the credit and recognition deserved by Directors for the work they create. Warner Bros. Discovery’s unilateral move, without notice or consultation, to collapse directors, writers, producers and others into a generic category of ‘creators’ in their new Max rollout while we are in negotiations with them is a grave insult to our members and our union.”
Warner Bros. Discovery responded to the issue, saying that the issue stems from a technical “oversight” when the company transitioned HBO Max to the new Max app.
“We agree that the talent behind the content on Max deserve their work to be properly recognized. We will correct the credits, which were altered due to an oversight in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max and we apologize for this mistake.”
I honestly find it hard to believe that this was just an “oversight” as opposed to a compromise the company was comfortable making in the short term through the transition. Obviously, especially with the timing of the writer’s strike, the company found itself in a pickle. Hopefully, they’ll get things fixed up quickly and give everyone the credits they deserve.
