Warner Bros. Discovery raised the hackles of some in Hollywood with last month’s launch of Max — the reskinned and renamed version of HBO Max — because the new service’s content details pages consolidated writers, directors, producers and others under a single “creators” heading.
Five weeks after issuing a mea culpa and promising to fix the situation, WBD has now updated the listings in Max. The updates appear to be live on platforms including the max website and iOS and will be rolling out across all device platforms this week.
For example, on Max, the Oscar-winning film “Raging Bull” starring Robert De Niro now includes the following listings: Directors: Martin Scorsese; Writers: Paul Schrader, Mardik Martin; Producers: Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff; based on Source Material by: Jake La Motta, Joseph Carter, Peter Savage. When Max launched on May 23, the service grouped all of those individuals under a single “creators” heading.
It’s not clear why Max had changed the way it presented movie credits on the titles’ details pages, whereas HBO Max had broken them out. A Warner Bros. Discovery rep had said the listings “were altered due to an oversight in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max.” In the changeover from HBO Max to Max, the service added in thousands of episodes from Discovery networks like “90 Day Fiancé” and “Fixer Upper,” which required the Max team to standardize on a common metadata framework.
Whatever the reason for Max’s consolidation of writers, directors and others into a single heading was perceived to be a slap in the face among some industry creatives — and the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, which slammed the “unilateral decision by Warner Bros. Discovery to change the long-standing individual credits of directors and writers in the new rollout of Max.” The timing of Max’s launch made the issue particularly sensitive, as it came in the first few weeks of the WGA writers strike (which remains ongoing).
Note that Max lists writer, creator and producer credits for TV series at the individual episode level, not on the show pages.
