The sad part is he's still better at his job than Chapek was

Living within walking distance of the Warner Brothers lot, I see an uncountable number of For Your Consideration billboards and I hear a lot about the strike.

Overall, average pay for Hollywood’s top execs climbed to $28 million in 2021, up 53% from 2018 (and roughly 108 times the average writer’s pay) according to the analysis, which uses compensation data from the research firm Equilar and includes stock options, base salaries, bonuses and other perks.

Meanwhile, average pay for Hollywood writers has remained virtually flat at about $260,000 as 2021, the Times reports. Median screenwriter pay has dropped 14% when adjusted for inflation over the last five years, according to statistics from the Writers Guild of America, the TV and film writers’ union with 11,500 members.

 

The top 10 highest-paid Hollywood executives in the last 5 years includes:

1. David Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.: $498,915,318
2. Ari Emanuel, Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.: $346,935,367
3. Reed Hastings, Netflix: $209,780,532
4. Bob Iger, Walt Disney Co.: $195,092,460
5. Ted Sarandos, Netflix: $192,171,581
6. Rupert Murdoch, Fox Corp.: $174,929,867
7. Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp.: $171,359,374
8. Brian Roberts, Comcast Corp.: $170,158,088
9. Joseph Ianniello, Paramount Global: $152,793,125
10. Patrick Whitesell, Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.: $143,584,597

 Let's take a look at Zaslaz. To be fair, most of that half billion came from before the merger, when he was CEO of Discovery and had a very good run pumping out cheap and profitable reality shows. It's difficult to argue anyone deserves that kind of compensation, but at least he was competent... was competent.

Since the merger, the studio is arguably floundering worse than it was before (and that's saying something). He rebranded the streaming service with the painfully generic name Max. He put James Gunn in charge of the superhero line apparently without seeing either Suicide Squad or Peacemaker. (Gunn is a brilliant filmmaker and Guardians shows he can make an effort to play by the studio rules but there's a lot of Troma in his DNA. Seriously, watch his deeply transgressive  DC work or, better yet, Tromeo and Juliet, and ask yourself, is this really the guy you want to give the car keys to?)

Perhaps the worst part of Zaslav's tenure has been the recent turmoil at CNN. Particularly since the Trump town hall, ratings are down, credibility is shot, and the talent is edging toward open revolt.

 And then there's this.