Two years ago nobody except industry insiders knew David Zaslav. Today people can’t wait to line up to talk smack about him. Since taking over Warner Bros. Discovery, the mogul has made one bizarre, hated move after another, including mucking with HBO Max (now, confusingly, just Max), cancelling fully completed movies, even deep-sixing hundreds of classic Looney Tunes shorts. He’s even pissed off the easily pissed-off the erstwhile Logan Roy.
Per IndieWire, Brian Cox penned an op-ed for Variety in which he sung the praises of Turner Classic Movies, which since 1994 has treated cable-havers to, well, classic movies 24/7, 365 days a year. Over the summer TCM fell victim to Zaslav’s Zaslav-ing, with budget cuts leading to the removal of some of its longtime staff. There was such a furor that Zaslav got a call from Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Paul Thomas Anderson, who coaxed him into backing off a bit from his gutting. Now it’s Cox’s turn to tell Zaslav what’s up.
“TCM has been under threat lately, particularly by the guy who runs Warner Bros. Discovery now; they don’t understand the value of it,” Cox wrote. “But TCM is always illuminating, it’s revealing, it’s invaluable as an actor. It’s like mother’s milk to me. I’ll defend it to the death.”
For Cox, TCM isn’t just a place to watch great, older movies. It’s also where he continues to shape his craft.
“I work with a lot of young actors, and I say, Look at your craft. Look at where you can see great work,” Cox writes. “To rediscover people like Irene Dunne, or Kay Francis, or Bette Davis in her glory. I’m an addict; I’m an absolute addict for that.”
He praised the “tremendous work” of the late Robert Osborne, who for decades introduced movies on the channel. He loves the current curators, too, who have been adding more foreign fare to their coffers.
“The films they show meet an extraordinarily high standard, in a world where art is forever getting debased,” Cox writes. “But TCM is always reinventing itself: It’s modern and it’s classical.”
For whatever it’s worth, Zaslav has maintained that he’s a huge fan of TCM and doesn’t want it disappeared (although maybe he could cut a deal with Comcast, who a few years back made it harder for customers to watch it as part of their regular subscription package).
Still, a lot of people don’t trust Zaslav with much these days. Last week, when rumor spread that Warner Bros. Discovery may merge with Paramount, many were instantly worried about what he’d do to the likes of SpongeBob Squarepants, Yellowstone, The Godfather saga, and many Tom Cruise pictures.
(Via Variety)
