Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming app Max changed its name Tuesday, dropping the “HBO” from HBO Max when it merged with Discovery+. But as an eagle-eyed viewer discovered later in the day, it also changed how basic details about a film are listed. And movie fans are very displeased.
On Tuesday night, film commentator (and Twitter power user) John Frankensteiner shared a screengrab of the details section from the landing page for the film “Raging Bull,” as it currently appears on Max.
While the film’s principle actors are listed under “starring,” director Martin Scorsese, writers Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin, and producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, are lumped together under a single listing: “Creators.” Included with them are Peter Savage, author of the book that inspired the film, and boxer Jake LaMotta whose life is depicted in it. Their individual roles are not differentiated.
“The new HBO Max (MAX) has eliminated writer/director credits in their interface in favor of a vague ‘Creators.’ This is what Raging Bull currently looks like. It’s so f—ing over,” Frankensteiner wrote.
TheWrap can confirm that this style of credits can be found on other films’ detail pages, including “Goodfellas” and “Superman the Movie,” just to name two.
As the image was shared on Twitter, the outrage came to include a cross section of film fans and actual film industry people.
“They’re about to receive so many letters from lawyers. It’s lichurally [sic] in our contracts how we get credited,” writer Jay El Harris said.
“BRING ON THE LAWYERS,” New Orleans-based filmmaker Randy Mack said.
“This is another step towards devaluing the artist and ensuring that their contribution is only ever recognized as merely expendable ‘content,’” actor Stephen Grayhm wrote.
“How do they think the @WGAWest @directorsguild and @producersguild would be even remotely okay with this?” writer Nora Zuckerman exclaimed.
Representatives for Warner Bros. Discovery, WGA and DGA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.
