Business drama. It’s not just for Wall Street and Working Girl. The Paramount Skydance vs. Netflix tussle for Warner Bros. feels like it is tailor made to have a book written about it.
The next salvoes have been fired, with Netflix’s position as the world’s number one streamer, a cause for Hollywood concern, being clearly the subject of these exchanges.
To try and allay fears, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters say their takeover of Warner Bros. and HBO Max will “create and protect jobs in the entertainment industry” and commented that they remain “deeply committed” to Warner Bros. Theatrical releases.
“We didn’t buy this company to destroy that value. We’re deeply committed to releasing [Warner Bros.] movies exactly the way they release those movies today.
If we did this deal 24 months ago, all those movies we saw this year do so well at the box office for Warner Bros. would have been released in the same way in theaters, talking about ”Minecraft,’ ‘Superman,’ ‘Weapons,’ ‘Sinners,’ All those movies.
With the Warner Bros. operating entity, we think it’s really important the way that they create and the way that they drive value.”
They also say that HBO has nothing to fear:
“We’re already a very well-established general entertainment brand, and we want HBO to double down on the things that people have loved for 50 years about HBO … These are the things that we’re going to keep going.”
Paramount Skydance has responded by pledging to release 30+ movies into theaters per year if they win the bid.
That would be Paramount’s already planned goal of at least 15 movies annually.
Then Warner Bros. Would add around 15 of their own. In an investor call, Paramount also promised to honor traditional, healthy release windows. Another cause of concern with the Netflix deal zeroed in on.
