Following Disney CEO Bob Iger's recent response to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes (you can find out more here), another major studio exec has come under fire for his comments relating to the action taken by writers and actors campaigning for what they consider to be a fair wage.
During today's Warner Bros. Discovery Q2 earnings results call, CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels essentially bragged that the strikes have saved his studio money - somewhere in the “low $100 million range."
However, CEO David Zaslav did follow up by saying that he is hopeful that negotiations ca resume fairly soon (it's looking like early September), and acknowledged that his company does need "the entirety of the creative community" to function.
“We’re in the business of storytelling. Our goal is to tell great stories, stories with the power to entertain and, when we’re at our best, inspire with stories that come to life on screens big and small. We cannot do any of that without the entirety of the creative community, the great creative community. Without the writers, directors, editors, producers, actors, the whole below-the-line crew. Our job is to enable and empower them to do their best work. We’re hopeful that all sides will get back to the negotiating room soon and that these strikes get resolved in a way that the writers and actors feel they are fairly compensated and their efforts and contributions are fully valued.”
"I think all of us in this business are very keen to figure out a solution as quickly as possible. We are in some uncharted waters, in terms of the world as it is today and measuring it all. And so I think, in good faith, we all got to fight to get this resolved. And it needs to be resolved in a way that the creative community feels fairly compensated and fully valued,” he added.
So far, only Sony Pictures has pushed some of its big releases back to 2024, but other studios are expected to follow suit if the strikes continue much longer.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.