Yahoo News New Max Credits Display Irks Creatives Amid Labor Standoff; Streamer Vows to Correct “Oversight” as Guilds Blast “Grave Insult”
Updated June 28: Max says the rollout of the updated credits will begin rolling out the week of June 28.
Previous: Max has responded to the controversy with the following statement: “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.”
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The decision to fix the credits comes as the writers and directors guild took a hard line against the Max grouping:
“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,” said DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter. “This devaluation of the individual contributions of artists is a disturbing trend and the DGA will not stand for it. We intend on taking the strongest possible actions, in solidarity with the WGA, to ensure every artist receives the individual credit they deserve.”
Said WGAW President Meredith Stiehm: “Warner Bros. has lumped writers, directors and producers into an invented, diminishing category they call Creators. This is a credits violation for starters. But worse, it is disrespectful and insulting to the artists that make the films and TV shows that make their corporation billions. This attempt to diminish writers’ contributions and importance echoes the message we heard in our negotiations with AMPTP — that writers are marginal, inessential, and should simply accept being paid less and less, while our employers’ profits go higher and higher. This tone-deaf disregard for writers’ importance is what brought us to where we are today — Day 22 of our strike.”
Previous: According to Max, the newly rebranded platform formerly known as HBO Max, Patty Jenkins and Allan Heinberg were the creators of 2017’s Wonder Woman. At least that’s how the new Max “details” section refers to Jenkins, who directed the Gal Gadot starrer, and Heinberg, who wrote the screenplay for the DC Comics movie.
The lack of specific details — and the grouping of writers and directors under merely just “Creators” — has already irked many creatives amid the ongoing Writers Strike and threats of labor unrest among the actors and directors unions as all three guilds are in the midst of separate negotiations with the studios and streamers who comprise the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The change — HBO Max’s previous credits pages provided more specific details about roles for writers and directors — was spotted late Tuesday, the same day that the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed streamer was rebranded as Max in a bid to reflect its increased content portfolio following the $43 billion merger that created a scripted and unscripted powerhouse.
The new HBO Max (MAX) has eliminated writer/director credits in their interface in favor of a vague "Creators." This is what Raging Bull currently looks like. It's so fucking over. pic.twitter.com/gPveQ469GB
— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) May 24, 2023
Silence of the Lambs is another particularly horrifying one pic.twitter.com/ohFAylCm9j
— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) May 24, 2023
After being spotted on Twitter late Tuesday, writers, directors and other creatives voiced their disdain for the move, which comes as streamers including Netflix and HBO Max already have a “skip intro” function.
Steven DeKnight (Daredevil) dubbed the “Creators” grouping an “absolute master class in how to fuck up a streaming service” and noted the move will “be studied for years.” Poker Face showrunner Nora Zuckerman flagged the WGA, DGA and Producers Guild of America and questioned how Max thought the various guilds “would be even remotely okay” with the change. Scribe Jorge Rivera took issue with being dubbed simply “Creators” and called it “Another move from studios to diminish the role of writers, directors, actors and other craftspeople.”
The issue applies to both films and TV series, though details on the latter are not found in a “Details” tab the way movie credits are located. Instead, TV credits can be found under the pulldown for “Episode Details.” (Clicking on the pilot for Succession, for example, again groups the following folks under only “Creators”: Regina Heyman, Frank Rich, Jesse Armstrong, Will Ferrell, Kevin Messick, Adam McKay, Dara Schnapper and Ilene S. Landress. (Succession has one creator, Jesse Armstrong.)
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