New Era Begins at Warner Bros., Tinged With Nostalgia

Almost every golden-age Hollywood studio had been conquered by outside forces by the end of the year.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had been thrown between owners for decades. Columbia Pictures was sold to Coca-Cola in 1982. Universal had weathered five takeovers in 21 years. Sumner Redstone had taken Paramount Pictures for cash.

Hollywood's citadel was Warner Bros., which was run by executives with institutional Hollywood knowledge.

AT&T arrived in town.

The Texas phone giant took over Warner Bros. in June of last year as part of a bid to bring a fresh approach to how the media and entertainment company works. AT&T slashed and burned through the Warner Bros. ranks as it set about building a streaming service. They cut costs, surprised stars with abrupt distribution decisions, and pushed Warner to become more of a technology company and less of an entertainment one.

The telephone people had no passion for movies and no understanding of Hollywood, according to Robert A. Daly, who ran Warner Bros. in the 1980s and 1990s. It is a show business. They always forget.

AT&T handed off Warner Bros. to Discovery as part of a $43 billion merger.

Harry Potter, Batman, and Bugs Bunny will no longer be home to the studio, which is now headed in a different direction. David Zaslav, Discovery's chief executive, will run the new corporation, which is called Warner Bros. Discovery.

Mr. Zaslav has defeated tech leaders brought in by AT&T, such as Andy Forssell, who came up through Oracle. Ann Sarnoff, who was hired by AT&T to run Warner Bros., is leaving. The Warner Bros. shield logo was changed from gold to AT&T blue. The gold was restored by Mr. Zaslav.

Some Hollywood players never changed their stance on Ms. Sarnoff, who is not one of us, with film folk sniping about her delay in relocating to Los Angeles from New York. She spent $18 million on Matt Damon's old house, which was bought in November.

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Mr. Zaslav is restoring an estate in Beverly Hills where Robert Evans lived for decades. Mr. Evans was known for orchestrating a creative rebirth at Paramount in the 1960s and 70s.

When announcing the takeover, Mr. Zaslav said that success is about creative talent, in front of the screen, and behind the screen, and fighting and fighting to create a culture that supports that creative vision. He has paid tribute to the Warner brothers who started it all, for much of the past year.

Mr. Zaslav sent an email to his employees that talked about his ambitions. Another executive at the studio said she was going on a shopping spree to celebrate.

Others weren't sure. Mr. Zaslav has run Discovery for 15 years and worked at NBCUniversal before that. He doesn't have a lot of film experience. Even as content costs rise, the debt of the merger will have to be paid down. Mr. Zaslav will have to make difficult decisions. How much money should be spent on marketing? Should the studio make movies for exclusive release in theaters? Should the focus shift even more toward supplying films to the streaming service?

Warner Bros. slashed its annual theatrical output by nearly half and built a direct-to-streaming assembly line.

Hollywood is in a similar state of mind when it comes to the future of movies. There is evidence that theaters are back to normal. The Sonic the Hedgehog 2 opened to a huge $71 million in North America, making it the biggest opening for a Paramount movie in three years.

Michael Bay, one of Hollywood's most bankable directors, had a rough weekend. Ambulance sold just $8.7 million in tickets. In its second weekend, the Sony movie "Morbius" collected $10.2 million in the United States and Canada, a 74 percent decline.

The future of big screens is still alive, but is now a corner of the culture.

The movie business is confused. Run towards the stream. We have to keep theaters alive. Run the other way.

Run both ways at the same time.

The discombobulation began in 2016 at Warner Bros. AT&T announced that it was buying Time Warner for $85 billion. Warner executives were limited in their ability to make bold strategic moves because of the regulatory limbo. The preferred home for film directors and marquee television producers was becoming a reality. Amazon Prime Video was gaining ground.

Mr. Zaslav will come up with a catch-up strategy soon. He reached out to people like Mr. Daly and Robert A. Iger, who retired as Disney's executive chairman in December.

Their brain power was priceless. I respect your culture, that's what I said when I met with them.

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Mr. Horn said on Saturday that the creative community needs to feel their respect. Artists need to know that you care about them and will do your best to protect them.

Mr. Horn said, "David's willingness to go around town and seek the advice of dozens of people has spoken volumes." It is how you build trust.

Mr. Zaslav will work with a passion to rebuild the studio's relationship with the creative community.

He reminisced about talent relations at Warner Bros. in the past. He said that the studio used to send turkeys to stars at Thanksgiving. The cast and crew of Lethal Weapon 3 were given free Land Rover in 1992.

Mr. Zaslav seems to have taken notes. In February, when Los Angeles hosted the Super Bowl, there were stars like theron and Foxx. The suite was bought by Mr. Zaslav and his lieutenants to wining and dining talent at football games, concerts and other major events.

The ancestral home of Humphrey Bogart is the Warner Bros. complex in Burbank, Calif. The Warner Bros. administration building is near Soundstage 6. Mr. Zaslav wants to be near where the magic happens.

Mr. Zaslav, don't park in Clint Eastwood's spot. He had it for more than 50 years and once used a baseball bat to knock out the windows of a car.

John was in New York.