Dear Gossips,   

Sometimes my folks ask me about movies to decide if they want to bother finding and watching them, such as asking if I’ve heard of “Concave”, aka papal thriller Conclave. So when they asked me about a new Clint Eastwood movie, for which they had seen a trailer, I thought they were mixing up filmmakers, because Clint Eastwood doesn’t have a new movie coming out. 

 

But then I checked and oh wait, yes he does. Juror #2 starring Nicholas Hoult is premiering this weekend at the AFI Fest, ahead of a November 1 release date. 

 

But how could I have completely missed a new film from Clint Eastwood starring Nicholas Hoult? Even if I don’t cover it, a trailer for a film like that should pop on my algorithm. But it didn’t, probably because Warner Bros. Discovery is burying it.

 

I promise I don’t TRY to pick on David Zaslav, the guy just has such “unpopular substitute teacher” energy, it’s actually hard to ignore all his tomfoolery. But this current bit of nonsense goes back to his earliest days with the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery entity. The Wall Street Journal profiled Zaslav just one month into his tenure of CEO of the newly merged conglomerate, and in that article is a reference to Zaslav raking Warners executives over the coals for recent flops, including Eastwood’s 2021 film, Cry Macho (a victim of Jason Kilar’s COVID-era day-and-date scheme). He reportedly asked the execs why they greenlit a film with iffy profitability and was unhappy when the response was that they felt “indebted” to Eastwood for his long relationship with the studio, to which he has delivered many hits.

 

Zaslav allegedly said they don’t “owe anyone favors” and quoted Jerry Maguire: “It’s not show friends, it’s show business.” First of all, this guy sucks. Secondly, sure, it’s show business, but it’s a business that runs on relationships. Zaslav had just undertaken control of a business that lost one of its most high-profile filmmakers—Christopher Nolan, more on him later—because the previous CEO was willing to burn that relationship in the name of business. Guess what? It cost Warners Oppenheimer’s $975 million success and their longstanding relationship with Nolan. 

At a time when the new CEO should have been shoring up creative partnerships to guarantee no one else walks out the door like Nolan, Zaslav instead poured kerosene on the fire, asking why bother supporting CLINT EASTWOOD in his SIXTY YEAR career, most of which has been spent working with Warner Brothers. Further, Eastwood’s reputation as a filmmaker is that he delivers his films on time and under budget. The quality may vary, but he does his work with minimal fuss, people like working for him, and he causes studios no headaches. But yeah, sure, toss that relationship on the bonfire of profits. Speaking of profits, though, sure, his last two films weren’t blockbusters, but in the 2010s alone, Eastwood delivered FOUR nine-figure movies. Any studio in town would kill for a director with that kind of track record, yet Zaslav was willing to toss Eastwood out on his ear because his last, COVID-hobbled film didn’t make American Sniper money.

 

Which brings us back to Juror #2. On the upside, they didn’t bury it for a tax write off or dump it on Max. But Warners is reportedly only releasing the film into THIRTY theaters.

 

Let me reiterate that my octogenarian parents, who only see 1-2 movies a year in theaters, were willing to go see Juror #2. They won’t get that chance, though, because Clint Eastwood’s new film, which looks like the kind of taut legal thriller we’ve been missing at the cinema since the Nineties, ran afoul of David Zaslav’s fetish for profit and loss statements. And I know, as CEO his job is to ensure Warner Bros. Discovery is profitable and the company came saddled with AT&T’s mountain of debt, but the film industry isn’t like any old retail industry. It is horse racing, and you have to accept that some horses lose while you’re chasing the Triple Crown. 

That said, Clint Eastwood is NOT a losing horse. The odds are even that he’ll deliver a blockbuster, and even when his films don’t hit that big, he never loses you that much money, because his films don’t cost much to make. He’s the closest thing to a safe bet in this industry, and Zaslav is willing to sever that relationship, probably because Eastwood is 94, and he’s thinking how many more movies could the old guy have in him, anyway? 

 

But wouldn’t it be worth it to end a five-decade relationship on a good note? Isn’t being a CEO also about leadership? Wouldn’t you want to set the tone, from the top down, of valuing long-standing, profitable relationships, even with one or two bumps in the road? After a period of turmoil, wouldn’t it be worth it to emphasize such a long-standing relationship? Or do you want to be the guy that everyone forever associates with treating Clint Eastwood like sh-t in his twilight years? It’s like David Zaslav WANTS to be the most disliked man in Hollywood.

Live long and gossip,

Sarah