Rushfield: How to Fix the David Zaslav Problem
The strike's literal poster boy can (and should) turn the narrative around
Stick around long enough in CEO stratospheres, your time in the barrel will come around.
Of course, the farther you stick your neck — and your face — out, the sooner that day is likely to fall.
John Stankey hardly knew a day when he wasn't in the barrel. After him, Bob Chapek had 33 good long months to get used to the feeling. There was a time when Shari Redstone was mocked in every corner of media, daring to challenge the great men of showbiz. Tom Rothman is on a long and effective campaign to show up his naysayers, paying back his days in the barrel at his last job. Jeff Shell, for his part, seemed to be made of Teflon, until he wasn't.
David Zaslav's turn has been longer and uglier than most and has gathered up momentum to the point where every hiccup in the Warner Bros. Discovery empire feeds right into a growing Zaslav narrative.
Problem is, the longer and deeper this line sticks the harder it is to break it. Just ask Mssrs. Stanley and Chapek, who struggled in vain to break their sense of being snakebit.
What's heartbreaking about the Zaslav case, however, is this time, there were hopes for greater things. David Zaslav is not some suit from Corporate HQ sent into the ride herd over the natives until the company can be sold off for spare parts. He has the intelligence, the energy and the ambition not just to pull his company back from its lost decade of ownership shuffles, but to be the leader that Hollywood needs in these times that are desperate for a leader.
Zaslav's defense of the theatrical experience in his speech to Cinemacon was the most impassioned defense of what Hollywood does and why it matters that I've heard from a studio head in... well since I can't remember when.
What's even more heartbreaking is that the second prize in that potential leader category goes to no one; there isn't a runner-up here. Just gray and defensive as far as the eye can see.
So what is a poohbah to do? How does David Zaslav break the narrative and move forward? To that end, some advice for the Man Who Could Be King:
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