Hollywood Reporter: David Zaslav Says Warner Bros. Discovery Is “Not For Sale” In Town Hall With Staff

Story from Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday held a company-wide global town hall, with CEO David Zaslav and his top creative deputies discussing the current state of the company, and their vision for where it should be going.

Zaslav was joined in the room by HBO chief Casey Bloys, Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy and Warner Bros. TV topper Channing Dungey, according to an attendee.

The executives acknowledged the “disruption” and “difficulty all media companies are facing” in the current environment, and also the “challenges” in integrating WarnerMedia and Discovery, noting that it is “difficult to say goodbye” to colleagues who left the company amid the reorganizations.

And Zaslav also emphasized that he and his team are committed to the long-haul as a “pure play content company,” and is not thinking about any other dealmaking, despite rumblings about sale talk down the line.

Warner Bros. Discovery is “absolutely not for sale,” Zaslav told attendees, highlighting the company’s assets and “global reach.”

“We have everything we need to be successful,” Zaslav said.

Zaslav and the other top executives also touted their respective lines of business, with HBO and HBO Max getting a shoutout for the recent House of the Dragon launch.

In fact, Zaslav touted Warner Bros. Discovery’s traditional linear TV businesses in helping the Game of Thrones prequel succeed, noting that the networks reach more than 30 percent of Americans, giving them substantial impact.

At Warner Bros. TV, Dungey said that while her studio will sell quite a bit to HBO Max, it will also continue to sell to other outlets and platforms, specifically calling out the success of Abbott Elementary on ABC (which WBTV produces) as an example of what the company can deliver to 3rd parties.

On the film front, De Luca and Abdy said that they are focused on building out a full film slate, with a goal of releasing 15-20 theatrical movies per year, spanning all genres, including romantic comedies, more traditional comedies, gangster films, and other genre features that have largely been relegated to streaming in recent years.

They also want to make sure that the Warner Bros film studio is a place that creatives want to work with.

The town hall is the first event to feature Zaslav and all of his top creative deputies since the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger was completed back in April. Since that time he added De Luca and Abdy, and began the process of combining the two companies. And Zaslav is searching for an executive to lead its DC Comics division, to turn the brand into a serious competitor to Marvel Studios.

The company says that it will merge HBO Max and Discovery+ in 2023, though many specifics are still TBD.

But there has also been speculation in Hollywood that the company may just be trying to get its ship in order so that it can be sold again as early as 2024 (owing to the complicated structure of the merger, the company cannot seek a large scale deal like that before then).

Zaslav’s comment at the town hall were clearly meant to temper that speculation.