EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has learned that David Zaslav, CEO and president of Warner Bros Discovery, will open the Warner Bros studio presentation on Tuesday, April 25 at CinemaCon.
While it’s common for movie studios, Sony’s Tom Rothman, Universal’s Donna Langley and former Warner Bros. CEO Toby Emmerich to share the spotlight with their respective sales and marketing executives when pitching their film products to exhibitors. It’s pretty rare for the head of a public media conglomerate to trade up to give a speech at CinemaCon. This is not something News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has done, nor has Disney CEO Bob Iger. More recently, Kevin Tsujihara, chairman and chief executive officer of Warner Bros Entertainment, was the senior executive of Warner Bros who spoke at the confab at Las Vegas Caesars Palace.
Following WarnerMedia’s experiments with a 2021 day-and-date pandemic plan for theaters on its streaming platform HBO Max, Zaslav has been a big proponent of movie windows since taking the reins at Warner Bros. Discovery took. He believes that when a title’s windows crash, it negatively affects its earnings, viewership and overall patina. Warner’s even has New Line’s this weekend the evil death comes up which was originally intended for HBO Max after it was picked up; The picture-exclusive theatrical release sees a very robust opening weekend of over $20 million.
Last week Zaslav took the stage at the 14th TCM Classic Film Festival alongside Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson and Warner Bros. made clear his commitment to the preservation of his rich library under his leadership.
Zaslav spoke about cinema at the event and said: “There is no other medium where people come together. Most of the things we do we do alone, but you go to the theater with a friend. There are people around you. The lights go out and it’s magical. This happened to me when I was very young in Brooklyn and I took my dad there on the weekends. And it’s that idea of a story, it can change the way you see yourself, the way you see the world. And I think it’s important, especially these days, that we tell stories. It’s now the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros.”
CinemaCon runs from Monday 24th to 27th April.
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Source: Deadline
Bernice Bonaparte is an author and entertainment journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a passion for pop culture and a talent for staying up-to-date on the latest entertainment news, Bernice has become a trusted source for information on the entertainment industry.
