Congrats to David Zaslav, the King of Failing Upward

Was I wrong this entire time? Ever since David Zaslav worked his way into a position of power at Warner Bros., I was certain that he would be another footnote in the company’s storied history of bad leaders. He certainly fit the mold by cancelling finished movies for tax incentives, getting involved in a pointless merger, being responsible for copious layoffs, and there’s that story about him turning off Fleabag while watching it with his friends on a boat because there was a sex scene.

When talk of buying Warner Bros. first began, the company had lost a reported $252 million. To quote a noted racist, “let that sink in.” At first glance, that may just seem like bad management. On second glance, that’s still true. On the third glance, you’ll start to question whether or not ‘ol Daddy Zaslav was trying to tank the company on purpose. It certainly seems possible. His job was to increase value for shareholders, and what’s more valuable to them than becoming toxic enough that someone buys you for more than your worth?

While that last sentence may have made me throw up a little in my mouth, it’s true. Now, Warner Bros. is being bought by Paramount at $31 a share. This comes after Netflix’s previous bid of $28 per share. The bidding war helped drive up the price, and while Netflix was on the losing end, don’t feel bad for Ted Sarandos. The company will still walk away with a couple of billion dollars because they didn’t get picked for the dance, and rich people get big paydays for being merely inconvenienced.

None of this is totally certain yet. It’s just, like, 99 percent likely. Some people will try to stand in the way, thankfully, because this is all bad, but how effective they are remains to be seen. Rob Bonta, the California Attorney General, told Deadline that this is not a done deal. “These two Hollywood titans have not cleared regulatory scrutiny — the California Department of Justice has an open investigation, and we intend to be vigorous in our review,” he told the outlet.

I’m glad someone will try to gum up the works, but the eyebrowless man whose daddy owns Paramount is also deeply in the pocket of the president of the United States. He’s so confident that this will go through that part of the deal is that his offer will increase if the deal isn’t done by January 1, 2027. Rich guys are known to posture, but this feels like a billionaire just making it clear that he is good friends with the most corrupt administration in our country’s history.

So, congrats, David. You did it. You failed so spectacularly that a crybaby billionaire came in to harvest the IP from a Hollywood institution. I hope people didn’t like that the new Superman movie focused on him being an immigrant, cause that ship is about to be blown up in the middle of the night.