This Max credits thing is apparently going to be one big, stupid mess to sort out

As far as own goals in digital media, Warner Bros. Discovery’s newly launched “Max” is the unwanted gift that keeps on giving. A few days later, there are leftovers something almost inspiringly stupid about launching a “new” streaming service amid a writers’ strike that was largely centered on the studio’s unwillingness to do justice to writers on streaming projects, only to do so in a way that reduces all proper credits to a single category of “Creators” that fades and obscures the border between so many creative jobs.

And, as it turns out, this creative misattribution wasn’t even a deeply narrow-minded and intentionally burn it, which we could anyway respect, in a perverse way. a new report from deadline states that WBD executives didn’t even know they were about to step on this particular rake, as the Creators tab was apparently the product of rushing IT people faced with the daunting task of managing Warner Bros.’s massive library of content. Discovery – HBO, Discovery, and other Warner Bros. properties. – merge into one service with insufficient guidance. Instead of dissecting all the writers, directors, producers, and more who made these shows, movies, stand-up specials, animated series, etc.– and faced with the rush to get Max out the door, they opted for the catch-all “Creators” thing instead. WBD executives apparently only found out about the problem when people started, justifiably, yell at them after Max launched earlier this week.

The crux of it all, of course, is the fact that, at least from a consumer’s point of view, there really was no reason to rush each of this; no one but WBD execs has called on the studio to slap HBO Max and Discovery+ together, and especially not in such a sloppy or flabby manuh. The idea that no one at higher levels apparently thought to ask how the service played the credits of the people actually making the content they all benefit from is just kind of icing on the fecal cake here.

The deadline report suggests untangling this mammoth pile of ‘makers’ could take weeks since it’s not like they can press a button and sort everyone who has worked on eg Crazy men, or any of the hundreds of other shows and movies affected by it, in their proper place. When asked for comment, HBO reporters apparently pointed back to their “We’re trying to fix it, we swear, please stop screaming” comment from earlier this week, which in fact doesn’t seem to have stopped the screaming at all.