GQ Editor Who Pulled Critical David Zaslav Story Is Producing Movie for Warner Bros.
Tatiana Siegel On July 3, GQ.com rolled out a hot-take story titled “How Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Became Public Enemy Number One in Hollywood.” The piece, which was written by freelance film critic Jason Bailey and slammed Zaslav as a Logan Roy-esque mogul, quickly disappeared from GQ’s website, while a new, more friendly version popped up with a separate URL. That version, too, vanished not long after, leaving readers puzzled. But did a GQ editor’s relationship with Warner Bros. play a role in the softening and ultimate removal of the story? GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch is producing a movie at Warner Bros. titled “The Great Chinese Art Heist,” which is based on a 2018 GQ article by Alex W. Palmer. Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”) is attached to direct and produce the film, which chronicles an audacious European museum crime wave that targeted Chinese antiquities. The project already has a script in place by Ken Cheng, Jessica Gao and Jimmy O. Yang. Sources say Welch was involved in the discussions surrounding the removal of Bailey’s initial story and made the call to pull the revamped story, which ran some 500 words shorter than the published version. Those same sources say Warner Bros. Discovery complained about the initial story to two GQ editors, one of whom was Welch.