It sounds like David Zaslav is picking a brand new fight with Netflix now

In his short time as the new CEO of corporate conjoined hellbeast Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav has picked an absolutely enormous number of fights with a staggering variety of people: Streaming advocates, animators, animation fans, the company’s own creatives, Batgirl fans, people who just want shows to stay on the dang streaming networks they’re paying to subscribe to, and, of course, Scooby-Doo. We can now add “Netflix” to that impressively craptacular pile of picked fights, as Deadline reports that Zaslav appears to be gearing up for a battle with the streaming giant.

Zaslav’s actual gripe here seems, to us, like some pretty petty small-ball: He’s mad that Netflix does its payments for shows it buys from studios like WBD—in this case, the very expensive Sandman TV series, which just got renewed for a second season, and which Warner Bros. Television produces—with long, multi-year payouts instead of quicker payoffs, something Netflix has been doing for years at this point. Nevertheless, Zaslav has apparently “been railing against” the payment terms to his various, surely delighted, subordinates, and has apparently gone so far as to pause sale of completed shows to the streamer while WBD looks over the terms.

The move marks another step in the degradation of a relationship that was about as symbiotic, at one point, as bonds between big-name Hollywood entities could get: Back before The CW began self-destructing, the Warner-owned network had one of the best relationships with Netflix running, with shows like Riverdale getting massive boosts in popularity after being featured prominently on the service. (More recently, there was the saga of Warner Bros. TV’s Manifest, which Netflix saved from its NBC cancellation because the sci-fi show performed well on the streamer.)

It’s not clear how much, or even if, this little spat will escalate into a bigger fight between the two companies; Zaslav clearly has it in him, but it’s not clear how much money either company is willing to blow to renegotiate the way they get paid, rather than the amount. Anyway: David Zaslav! Sounds more like a real peach of a guy every time we learn something new about him.