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NEWS BROKE LATE LAST NIGHT that Netflix has apparently won the fight to acquire the Warner Bros. studio and streaming assets from Warner Bros. Discovery, which will split off its cable assets (including CNN) into a separate company for sale to someone else.
As you might have guessed from, say, the headline of my newsletter last week, I’m not a fan of this deal for a number of reasons. On a purely artistic level, I have no interest in Netflix’s slop factory taking charge of the highbrow output of HBO and am skeptical that they will make good use of the intellectual property reserves at Warner Bros. On a business level, though, I think this is basically disastrous for the industry as it is currently constituted. Over the last thirty years, Warner Bros. has the second-largest market share at the box office, second only to the Marvel- and Pixar-powered behemoth that is Disney.
I interviewed box office guru Scott Mendelson earlier in the week about what such a deal might do to the world of theatrical exhibition, and the short answer is “nothing good.” Listen here:
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Mendelson pointed to what Netflix has done to the award-season market as an example.
I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat here, but I think it’s backed up by recent history. Something that Netflix has done a lot of in the last few years is it seems like every time there’s this big, buzzy, crowd-pleasing festival flick that might theoretically do well in theaters, Netflix flies in, drops a $20 million check on it, grabs distribution rights, and then it dies in the algorithm. And I think, I would argue, that they are doing that at least partially intentionally because the worst thing that can happen for Netflix is for that film to be successful in theaters.
You see this throughout the exhibition industry: Netflix has cut the legs out of the comedy market by throwing enormous amounts of money at people like Adam Sandler and has radically driven up the cost of big-budget tentpoles by throwing enormous sums of money at stars like Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, depriving theaters of butts-in-seats stars.
Whether or not the deal will survive regulatory scrutiny is a separate question. And whether or not that scrutiny will be fair or just in the age of Trump is another separate, and important, question: The only thing worse than Netflix destroying the theatrical ecosystem is Donald Trump’s regulatory apparatus destroying mergers because the guy in the White House is buddies with another company that wants to buy it. All the options here are bad. Hooray modernity.
Over on the homepage I’ve got a review of—or really more like a roundup of reactions to—three awards-season films: Hamnet, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and Train Dreams. One thing they have in common: plots that involve babies and young children in danger.