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EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has learned that Warner Bros Discovery CEO and President, David Zaslav, will be teeing off Warner Bros studio presentation at CinemaCon on Tuesday AM, April 25.
While it’s standard for the heads of motion picture studio divisions, read Sony’s Tom Rothman, Universal’s Donna Langley, and former Warner Bros chief Toby Emmerich to share the spotlight on stage with their respective distribution and marketing executives as they show off their cinematic wares before exhibitors, it’s quite rare for the head of a publicly trade media conglomerate to speak at CinemaCon. It’s not anything that News Corp Boss Rupert Murdoch has done, nor Disney CEO Bob Iger. In recent memory, the highest ranking Warner Bros executive to speak at the Las Vegas Caesars Palace confab was Warner Bros Entertainment chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara.
In the wake of WarnerMedia’s experimentation with a 2021 theatrical day-and-date pandemic plan on its streaming HBO Max platform, Zaslav has been a huge champion for theatrical windows since taking the reins of Warner Bros Discovery. He believes that collapsing a title’s windows negatively impacts its revenues, streaming viewership, and overall patina. In fact, this weekend Warner’s has New Line’s Evil Dead Rises, which was originally intended for HBO Max after being picked up; the pic’s exclusive theatrical launch is seeing a very robust $20M+ opening weekend.
Last week, Zaslav, took the stage with Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson, at the 14th TCM Classic Film Festival, and made it clear that Warner Bros is making a commitment toward preserving their rich library under his leadership.
Said Zaslav at the event about cinema, “There’s no other medium where you 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 magic. It happened to me when I was very young in Brooklyn, and I would go on the weekends with my dad. And it’s that idea of a story, it could change the way you see yourself, the way you see the world. And it’s critically important I think, particularly at this time, that we tell stories. It’s now the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros.”
CinemaCon runs from Monday, April 24-27.