Netflix To Take Over Warner Brothers: What Does The Future Hold?

Well thanks a lot, guys. Now I have to push CBS Transformers off of the schedule this week because you drop this as people were going to bed last night. I had TWO installments auto-scheduled so today I could focus on getting my Christmas comic out by Christmas, but instead we have to talk backstage nonsense. Figures.

In case you somehow missed the buzz today, Netflix has won it’s bid to acquire Warner Brothers and everything that comes with it. Note that this is not yet a done deal. Final negotiations still have to happen, Paramount’s new owners Skydance, the most favored of the bidders, is raising a ruckus, and part of the deal is for Discovery’s side of things to take some stuff with them when they go, but for all intents and purposes the paid streaming service has won the day, the Warner Brothers back catalog, and the resources to make more theatrical and TV/streaming shows. Apparently everybody wants Warner Brothers…except people who own Warner Brothers. It wasn’t that long ago that Discovery Networks took this off of AT&T’s hands after they got it from AOL Turner Time-Warner.

Of course everyone involved with discussing the entertainment media have thoughts on the deal. I share some of those thoughts, and yet there are a few that aren’t being brought up that probably should. No matter how you look at it, this may be great news for Netflix and for David Zaslav’s accountant, but for the movie industry, fans, and various corners of geekdom this is not a good sign for the future. Let’s discuss.

First off, Paramount isn’t happy, believing that Zaslav favored Netflix to get a better deal for the folks in the offices. They’re apparently still going to fight. WDW Pro at That Park Place suggests one of the issues is CNN, one of the channels that will go with Zaslav and Discovery Global. That’s where the TV networks are going, I guess. As far as streaming, the current Warner Brothers Discovery dropped a whole bunch of 24/7 channels onto Amazon Prime, Roku, Plex, Pluto TV I think, and a bunch of others. The future of those channels is in jeopardy. Some of the shows and media networks like HGTV, Magnolia Network from Chip & Joanna Gaines, other home improvement shows, the Cartoon Rewind channel, and a few others will probably go with Discovery Global. I haven’t seen the full list, but CNN is part of Discovery Global’s takeaways. Skydance was looking forward to getting their hands on the first 24/7 news channel, redeeming it like they’re trying to do with CBS News. Forget wokeness, CNN proved they were liars after finally admitting they lied about Saddam Hussein’s evil record to get interviews with him for the ratings. I stopped trusting them after that, since they only admitted it because Hussein was out of power and six feet under.

Skydance was a favorite not because of President Trump noting his hope they’d win. It’s Hollywood. Trump is the Antichrist to them ever since they stopped the Democrats from claiming the first woman president, which the Republicans could still do if they run the right woman versus the two bad choices the Democrats made, but this isn’t a political blog. No, the real worry according to Variety was that Netflix would ruin Warner Brother’s place in the movie theaters.

Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix, has a different agenda. He has been unabashed about declaring that the era of movies seen in movie theaters is an antiquated concept. This is what he believes — which is fine. I think a more crucial point is that this is what he wants.

The Netflix business strategy isn’t simply about being the most successful streaming company. It’s about changing the way people watch movies; it’s about replacing what we used to call moviegoing with streaming. (You could still call it moviegoing, only now you’re just going into your living room.) It in no way demonizes Sarandos — he’d probably take it as a compliment — to say that there’s a world-domination aspect to the Netflix grand strategy. Sarandos’s vision is to have the entire planet wired, with everyone watching movies and shows at home. There’s a school of thought that sees this an advance, a step forward in civilization. “Remember the days when we used to have to go OUT to a movie theater? How funny! Now you can just pop up a movie — no trailers! — with the click of a remote.”

“We are Hollywood. Resistance is futile. We will become one”

It’s not just the top industry news source with this worry. They also report that an anonymous joint letter from filmmakers who still see the movie theater as the ultimate status symbol, thus why it sits atop the media pecking order, will be damaged because Sarandos will push to reduce the theater exclusive appearances prior to moving to streaming, specifically to Netflix and whatever it is they do with HBO Max if anything. They might just shut down the first 24/7 ad free subscription cable channel for movies, music and stand-up concerts, sports, and original TV shows free of the FCC’s more strict rules towards regular television channels. As it turns out, they might be right about the reduced theater screening window as that’s what he’s hinting may happen. With theaters already forced (to be kind) to raise prices, a moviegoing experience further ruined by rude patrons on their phone or loudly riffing a movie, and the 2020 plague already telling people that they don’t need movie theaters to have a group bonding experience of friends or family, an even shorter theater-to-streaming window that has already been around will make matters worse for the already weakening movie theater industry and alter the pecking order that Hollywood has declared sacred.

It’s also been noted that Warner Brother’s release numbers per year could falter. MGM was already not putting much out when Amazon bought them, but look to Disney. Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm were already one-track minds, but critics have noticed a slowdown in how many movies come out each year from Disney’s other studios: 20th Century Fox/Studios, Touchstone Pictures, and the other studios Disney has absorbed or created over the years even before Iger became the Borg King of Hollywood aren’t putting out as many movies a year, and the ones they do have overblown budgets that hurt their overall profits even when a movie does allegedly well. With Netflix already having to be dragged into the cinema for short appearances like K-Pop Demon Hunters and the most recent adaptation of Frankenstein, what happens to Warner Brothers movies per year or TV shows licensed to cable/satellite, and normal broadcast television? Of course streaming will be exclusive to Netflix and what HBO Max turns into…and now we have a new discussion.

After all, there are other problems that thus far nobody has addressed that’s worth discussing. What happens to home video? Netflix is notorious for releasing NONE of it’s original programming on home video because they want you to watch it on their service, which they get money from in subscriptions and low-tier ad support assists. Home video is slowing coming back as people realise the benefits of a one-time fee for the shows and movies they want to rewatch, the issues of editing older movies for…let’s just say current day social extremes, and some media disappearing when a license isn’t renewed. Assuming Legendary Pictures is going with Warner Brothers, that’s a lot of media off the table on home media and other services like Tubi or 24/7 channels on Pluto TV, Sling Freestream, Plex, and others. Right now, seeing most of Warner Brothers Discovery’s animation library means going to Tubi or MeTV Toons. Netflix also raises their own prices, cuts down on password sharing in ways that hurt families with kids off to college or parents on long business trips. HBO Max already has a price hike recently and Dad only got that for old movies and a few of his favorite Discovery owned shows, while I’ve been watching my own favorites, Godzilla movies, and what few cartoons they have left.

Netflix does share Hollywood’s snubbing of animation, even Japanese animation.

Oh yes, the animation library. As I’ve noted in the past, even if Zaslav takes Discovery Kids/Family animated programming with him and Discovery Global, Netflix will now own the library for Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, Ruby Spears Productions, Cartoon Network Studios, and whatever deal they have with Williams Street, plus HBO Max has a section just for Studio Ghibli productions. Will they actually make use of these libraries when Zaslav didn’t? I’ll give you one worse. Look at what Netflix did with He-Man and She-Ra. Look at the live-action demakes of Cowboy BeBop. Avatar The Last Airbender, Winx Club, and Death Note. Look at some of the poor anime dub work Netflix has done. Do you think animation has a future under this company? K-Pop Demon Hunters is a fluke and they’re just distribute the Korean animated production. Could we see a live-action Space Ghost with a grimdark “no kids allowed” live action make over (the comics do it) with a bloated special effect budget, or a cartoon version that makes Jan the superior hero over the dumb boys? (Sorry, Kid Comet, she’s into Elektra now.) Wouldn’t bet against it.

In video games you have Warner Interactive, or WB Games, or whatever it’s called right now. Do either Discovery or Netflix care about video games? Will they keep being made or are we about to lose another gaming studio?

Finally, there’s DC Entertainment. There was already discussion of Paramount reducing James Gunn’s power at DC Studios, with a rumor of him even being replaced by Zack Snyder, probably started by Snyder Bros who want his cynical deconstruction of superheroes to resume and won’t settle for an original hero universe. I was planning that as a discussion topic for next week, but point in that now. However, what about the comics? I doubt either of them care about the comics and I don’t know that Netflix will bother, or they’ll come up with a terrible system of digital distribution and who knows what happens to physical comics given how they treat home video? Naturally nobody talks about the comics so that future is even further up in there air. I don’t even know what happened to Time magazine because I don’t follow that particular media, but I think it still exists.

Granted we have to ask how much of this would have continued if Paramount/Skydance had absorbed whatever parts of Warner Brothers Discovery Zaslav isn’t taking with him, and I don’t even know what that is. Maybe that will be sorted out in negotiations, Discovery Global taking everything Netflix doesn’t want and both of them tossing out what neither of them wants. We know Paramount would have done the theatrical films and shows better, maybe even home video, though with less money you could have a reduced release number like Disney’s acquisitions have had. Skydance is still paying for Paramount, and like Warner Brothers that’s been losing money recently. Maybe it is better for Skydance to fix Viacom, while Zaslav apparently thinks Warner Brothers is doing so poorly that he’s noping right out of it. There’s an uncertain future, and in recent years in the Hollywood system that hasn’t bode well for anybody except the executives and investors. I suspect that will be continuing. We’ll have to see where this goes, since these are the people in charge of bringing us stories…and they haven’t been doing a good job at it recently.