AT&T CFO John Stephens Says Warner Bros. Has “Long History Working With Talent” But Covid Is A Reality “We Can’t Change”

deadline.com:

John Stephens, the outgoing CFO of WarnerMedia parent AT&T, defended the company’s move to release its 2021 film slate concurrently on HBO Max and in theaters and cited Warner Bros.

century-long relationship with Hollywood talent — with some disgruntled at the move and the way it was communicated.“We’ve got a long history of working with the talent and will continue to work with them.

I think we’ve got a reputation that goes [back] decades. Warner Bros. studio in particular, it’s just decades and decades, almost a hundred years,” he said at a virtual media conference Tuesday when asked about the risk of a talent drain to rival studios that have taken a different approach.“This is a unique situation” he said, with the pandemic shuttering or