Dear David Zaslav: Gutting TCM Will Not Help You Win Filmmakers Back to Warner Bros.
It’s not every day that Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson team up. But IndieWire has learned they will today: The three directors have scheduled an emergency call with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav about the layoffs of Turner Classic Movies’ top brass. (UPDATE: Spielberg, Scorsese, and Anderson released a joint statement through Spielberg’s production company, Amblin, sounding an upbeat note about TCM’s future following multiple conversations with David Zaslav. Read it here.)
The network laid off much of its leadership yesterday, including executive VP and general manager Pola Changnon; senior VP of programming and content strategy, Charles Tabesh; VP of brand creative and marketing Dexter Fedor; VP of enterprises and strategic partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy, who also served as the director of the annual TCM Film Festival; and VP of studio production Anne Wilson.
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These people were responsible for everything from curating lineups, to shooting intros and outros, and for creating original shows, documentaries, and video essays that serve as major contributions to American cultural history.
Scorsese has often said he has Turner Classic Movies on all day in the background when editing his movies with Thelma Schoonmaker. “It gives me something to turn to, to bounce off of, to rest in, to reinvigorate my thinking — just glancing at some image or combination of images at a certain moment,” Scorsese told the Los Angeles Times of his favorite network. “It’s more like a presence in the room, a reminder of film history as a living, ongoing entity.”
Spielberg appeared at the last two TCM Film Festivals and in multiple TCM documentaries. Paul Thomas Anderson also was at the festival this year; in that same LA Times article, he called the network “holy ground.” Also among its passionate fans are Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, and Patton Oswalt. Tom Hanks just recorded some fantastic intros and outros to “Casablanca” and “Jezebel” opposite 20-year TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, whose name is a connection to Hollywood’s golden age but whose own historical knowledge is even more impressive.
TCM’s contribution to the historical record includes “Private Screenings” episodes that features Robert Mitchum hooked up to an oxygen tank while being interviewed alongside Jane Russell, and Betty Hutton talking about her devastating life post-Hollywood. TCM produced incredible pieces of original content, including pioneering short-form videos, when short-form was by no means a thing, to air between movies. (Here’s Molly Haskell deploying incredible double entendres in her tribute to King Vidor!)
These cuts come as WBD CEO David Zaslav recites what’s become his rosary: He wants Warner Bros. to be a studio for filmmakers. He wants to build bridges with directors who were burned by the previous regime under Jason Kilar, who responded to the pandemic with a unilateral move for day-and-date releases on HBO Max. Warner Bros. Film Group CEOs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy said they hope even to lure Christopher Nolan back to the studio — his work was unaffected by Kilar’s decision, but he was so horrified by the logic that he left Warner Bros., his home of nearly 20 years, to make “Oppenheimer” at Universal.
As logic goes, it’s hard to say that Warner Bros. is the best home for filmmakers when it’s also gutting their favorite TV network — the only one dedicated to celebrating cinematic history (and, incidentally, the greatest linear hub for showing off 100 years’ worth of Warner Bros. artistry). From the gangster movies and Errol Flynn swashbucklers of the 1930s to “The Exorcist” and “Blazing Saddles” in the ‘70s to “The Shining” and “The Color Purple” in the ‘80s and “Goodfellas” in the ‘90s, it’s all on TCM. WBD tapped into that legacy by opening its last investor call with a sizzle reel that started with a clip from Warner Bros.’ crown jewel, “Casablanca.” The studio even premiered a documentary called “100 Years of Warner Bros.” at the Cannes Film Festival this May. How is it not worth investing in the channel that reinforces that legacy 24 hours a day?
If TCM is neglected, or God forbid, shuttered, it would be a massive loss to cinema culture. It would devalue Warner Bros.’ own legacy — if they don’t care about this unique way of putting their history on display and in context, why should filmmakers believe that Warner Bros. values cinema beyond the bottom line?
On every investor call Zaslav says that quality is everything to him, that Warner Bros. tells better stories than anyone else. If so, why is TCM the ongoing target for ever more cuts? The brand made a successful transition to a non-linear format, as well: The Watch TCM app requires a cable subscription, but it offers a rotating library that can feel as robust as the Criterion Channel. And at a time when live media is considered to be an ever-more lucrative revenue stream for entertainment media, the TCM festival is an established live, in-person extension of the brand.
In a recent interview with IndieWire’s Eric Kohn, Changnon emphasized her desire to extend TCM’s “discovery engine.” She said, “The big question is, ‘What is the future of any network brand?’ What we’re looking to do in the platforms available in this company is leverage our curation in whatever format that might be.”
Full disclosure: I’ve written two books for TCM and appeared multiple times on the channel as a guest programmer. Without Tabesh’s eclecticism — a programming sensibility that goes so far beyond just the established classics, such as the tried-and-true AFI Greatest American Movies list — would I have been allowed to avoid such an obvious classic as “Casablanca” when presenting my lineup of films tied to my book about World War II and the movie industry, “Hollywood Victory”?
They allowed me to program “Courage of Lassie,” in which the beloved collie fights in the war’s Aleutian campaign. It was a big hit in 1946, and an example of the wide range of movies viewers embraced during the war and its aftermath. I called it “‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ of dog movies.” A network with a less-eclectic sensibility might have told me to program only “The Best Years of Our Lives” and get on with it. That William Wyler film is a masterpiece, but it’s an obvious one. And TCM at its best goes beyond the obvious.
That expansive mentality, that inclusion, the idea that classic movies could be more than just the most recognizable titles also tells filmmakers that the canon is expansive and one day they might be a part of it. If TCM fades, so does one more reason that filmmakers might want to place their trust in Warner Bros.
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