Executives Purged, 2020 Fantasies, Will Smith’s Next Move

Happy Friday and thanks for reading The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what’s new at Puck.

Today, we lead with Matt Belloni’s unflinching assessment of who’s up, and who’s out, as David Zaslav ends his goodwill listening tour of Warner Bros. Discovery and the executive purge begins.

Plus, below the fold: Tina Nguyen explains why the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearing resembled a QAnon forum on steroids. And Belloni and Jon Kelly swing by a new episode of The Powers That Be to discuss Will Smith’s Oscar punishment and the latest gossip in Zazworld.

SPONSORED BY

The David Zaslav Honeymoon Is Already Over

The goodwill tour has finished, and the executive purge has begun. Here’s who’s up, and who’s out, as Team Zaz assumes full control of the combined (and debt-ridden) Warner Bros. Discovery.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Anyone who’s sat with David Zaslav over the past 11 months—and that includes me—has received one message above all: Tell me what I need to know. Despite being a successful media executive for decades, the incoming Warner Bros. Discovery C.E.O. has executed a listening tour for the ages, chatting with everyone from Steven Spielberg to labor experts to lower-level agents. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zaslav interviewed the Polo Lounge custodial crew to determine the Hollywood community’s preferred fragrance of urinal cakes.

A lot of that has been for show, of course. Regardless of whether Zaslav actually takes anyone’s advice for HBO Max, Warner Bros., or CNN, he needs people in the creative community to think he’s been listening to them. Maybe he’ll spend more on content, like he says he will, or maybe he’ll spend less, or maybe he’ll decide that the Game of Thrones spinoff should be a jukebox musical in black and white—but at least he listened. How else would the notoriously frugal proprietor of 90-Day Fiance—someone who’s never really dealt with entertainment unions or top-tier talent, and who actually dared ask producers to take out loans to front their own production costs—be taken seriously? AT&T C.E.O. John Stankey and the phone company functionaries never did that basic ingratiation, and, during its four years of ownership, AT&T was greeted not as enlightened digital colonists but as an invading army of suits...