Max Will Fix Those Very Weird ‘Creators’ Credits, Blames Tech ‘Oversight’
Max, the new streaming service combining HBO Max and most of Discovery+ that launched on Tuesday, is already making a major change. At least, it’s major to the creative community.
The current credits screen on Max’s movie library weirdly lumps directors, writers, and producers (and possibly even others, we haven’t combed through every example) all in one “Creators” category. It’s a movie-credits stew, if you will. And like stew, nobody seems to actually like it.
Some particularly egregious examples have already gone viral on Twitter. A user who goes by John Frankensteiner pointed out that in the “Raging Bull” credits, director Martin Scorsese and boxer Jake LaMotta, whose autobiography the movie is based on (and whom Robert De Niro portrayed in the film), are lumped among among eight “Creators.” (All told, the list includes five credited writers, two producers, and one director, listed in seemingly no particular order.)
A Max spokesperson told IndieWire the service will “correct” the error, which came about due to “an oversight in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max.”
“We agree that the talent behind the content on Max deserve their work to be properly recognized,” the full Max statement reads. “We will correct the credits, which were altered due to an oversight in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max and we apologize for this mistake.”
That apology may or may not be accepted by the writers and directors guilds. Shortly after we received the Max statement, the WGA and DGA jointly sent the below statements to IndieWire. It is possible, even likely, the guilds’ statements were crafted before they caught word of the Max mea culpa. IndieWire has asked the WGA and DGA for a response to the Max statement; we will update this story if we receive additional statements.
“For almost 90 years, the Directors Guild has fought fiercely to protect the credit and recognition deserved by Directors for the work they create,” DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter said. “Warner Bros. Discovery’s unilateral move, without notice or consultation, to collapse directors, writers, producers and others into a generic category of ‘creators’ in their new Max rollout while we are in negotiations with them is a grave insult to our members and our union.”
“This devaluation of the individual contributions of artists is a disturbing trend and the DGA will not stand for it,” she continued. “We intend on taking the strongest possible actions, in solidarity with the WGA, to ensure every artist receives the individual credit they deserve.”
“Warner Bros has lumped writers, directors and producers into an invented, diminishing category they call Creators. This is a credits violation for starters,” WGAW President Meredith Stiehm said in her own statement. “But worse, it is disrespectful and insulting to the artists that make the films and TV shows that and make their corporation billions.”
“This attempt to diminish writers’ contributions and importance echoes the message we heard in our negotiations with AMPTP— that writers are marginal, inessential, and should simply accept being paid less and less, while our employers’ profits go higher and higher,” she continued. “This tone-deaf disregard for writers’ importance is what brought us to where we are today — Day 22 of our strike.”
