Warner Bros have been actively seeking a buyer for their business for several months. Rumours have been a plenty with Paramount, Netflix and Comcast all putting offers in and bidding to buy the huge company.

On Friday 5th December, Netflix announced they were set to buy Warner Bros for $72 Billion. WB have been heavily fought over for many months between Netflix, Paramount and Comcast, with light rumours of other companies as well.

What do Warner Bros actually own?

Warner Bros are one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. They have a huge extensive catalogue of not just film properties, but TV and gaming. Disney have always lead the way with having a large catalogue of properties that they’ve built, as well as acquiring the likes of Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm (Star Wars). Warner Bros always felt like they were second best, especially when you consider they have the likes of DC Studios and Harry Potter, as well as owning hit TV station, HBO which has produced some of the most consistently high level TV including the likes of The Sopranos, Game of Thrones and Succession.

Here is a very extensive list of some of the big properties that they own:

• Game of Thrones
• DC Studios (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman etc)
• Harry Potter
• Lord of the Rings (Film rights)
• Dune
• Scooby Doo
• Friends
• Mad Max
• The Matrix
• Tom & Jerry
• Rick & Morty
• Looney Tunes
• The Conjuring
• Final Destination
• Every HBO Property
• WB Games
• Casablanca
• Citizen Kane
• IT
• Blade Runner
• The Lego Movie
• Barbie
• Euphoria
• Succession
• The Big Bang Theory
• The White Lotus
• and much more

Are Netflix struggling with shows?

Netflix don’t have a huge catalogue and have struggled to create their own properties. They’ve had huge hits across the years, with shows like Stranger Things (which obviously comes to an end in a couple of weeks), Wednesday, Bridgerton, Monster, all shows that have been successful and managed to get a good life span out of them. However, you then get shows like Russian Doll, which had a huge opening, but dropped immediately and no-one watched the second season, and the likes of The Witcher, which gets diminishing returns each season. This is arguably due to Netflix’s initial release model where they would just drop every episode for a season all at once, rather than the traditional week to week release. There are obviously a lot of people that prefer the binge to watch every episode and don’t enjoy the wait for next week, something I don’t understand. I have found through the years, I get a lot more enjoyment out of the weekly releases. When I think back to Game of Thrones, and the theories and anticipation of what the next episode would bring. Even Netflix have realised that people were just binging their shows in a couple of days then just canceling their subscriptions, so they’ve now moved to splitting the season up into two parts. Perhaps it’s generational, and the younger people coming through have so much at their fingertips that people think they don’t want to wait.

By purchasing WB, and therefore, HBO, they take on huge properties like Game of Thrones which has multiple spin-offs in the works and hugely successful with fans, then the likes of Euphoria and The White Lotus which are critically acclaimed.

Netflix vs Cinema

Obviously Netflix is a streaming service,they don’t want to put films into the cinema. By holding onto their films and releasing them exclusively on their platform, it doesn’t give the consumer any choice but to watch the film from the comfort of their own home.

Netflix’s CEO, Ted Sarandos in a statement to investors claims Netflix have released around 30 films in cinemas this year. I personally can only think of a couple within the last month, these are Frankenstein and Wake Up Dead Man, both of which I’ve reviewed recently. Both of these films I watched in my local Everyman cinema, which is relatively easy to get to (I have to get a train) but Everyman is a niche, expensive, premium cinema. Both of those films, weren’t showing in either of my nearest Cineworlds or Vue cinema, and were both only showing a couple of times. These releases Netflix put into cinemas, are consistently in smaller cinemas and for a specific reason. Netflix only put these films into a certain amount of cinemas so they can be eligible for awards. It’s as simple as that, if it wasn’t for that reason, they 100% wouldn’t bother.

Ted Sarandos also claims Barbie and Oppenheimer would’ve had just as big of a cultural impact if they were released on Netflix. Oppenheimer made $975 million worldwide and Barbie made $1.447 billion worldwide, it’s insane to think that they would’ve been just as successful on a streaming service. A massive aspect of Barbenheimer as a trend was friends dressing up, meeting up and going to see both films in the cinema, or guys meeting up to see Oppenheimer and girls seeing Barbie. Both films critically acclaimed. Christopher Nolan is such a huge proponent of seeing films in the cinema. Nolan had a fantastic working relationship with WB who produced The Dark Knight trilogy,Tenet, Interstellar, Dunkirk, but it was during covid that Nolan decided to stop working with WB due to the fact that they were shortening their release window, which is the amount of time films are shown in the cinema before they get released on streaming. Nolan now works for Universal, who don’t have their own streaming service, and allow him to make films and put out films anyway he likes. Nolan’s next film, The Odyssey is so hotly anticipated showings for IMAX 70mm went on release a year before it’s due to be in July 2026 and sold out almost immediately, so there’s absolutely still a desire to see films in the cinema, and fine you could say that’s just cinephiles but let’s look at this years box office. 6 films have crossed over $750 million worldwide, which is fantastic, obviously all relative. Cinema is naturally on a little bit of a comedown after the struggles of Covid, and with the MCU faultering after Avengers: Endgame, and what felt like a peak period for cinema experiences, people have felt like “oh that’s the death of cinema” when it’s actually more like the status quo pre-MCU. If we look at 2007, the year before the MCU, 4 film crossed $750 million worldwide, and that was a world that had only just been introduced to the first iPhone, we certainly didn’t have any streaming services, or anywhere near as many tv shows,video games or YouTube, or even social media. So is cinema really struggling? Yes, I would still say cinema is struggling, and that it’s vital that if you enjoy the cinema experience then watch as many films as you can on the big screen.

Paramount to save the day? or worse?

After Netflix announced their successful bid for WB, it was also revealed that Paramount, have last a final minute hijack bid of $108 billion, but would be for more than what Netflix want. Netflix would purely be purchasing WB studios, WB tv, WB Games, DC Studios, HBO, New Line Cinema and TNT Sports. Paramount would not just be purchasing all of that, but would be purchasing all the live TV as well which would include CNN, Cartoon Network, Eurosport, Adult Swim, and many other channels we don’t get in the UK.

Paramount do have their own streaming service. Paramount+ isn’t seen as a huge success and generally falls short when you compare it to the likes of Disney+, HBO Max, Prime, Netflix, purely due to the quality of the content. Paramount do have a couple of bigger franchises being Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Top Gun, Transformers, Friday the 13th, Spongebob Squarepants and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and yet have struggled with their streaming service. Merging with HBO Max would be a huge win in that regard. I’ve always felt Paramount would thrive if it merged with another service, which I thought would be best with AppleTV.

A Paramount buy would absolutely be better for cinemas. Paramount had huge success with Top Gun: Maverick at the cinemas, particularly having an extended run in IMAX as well. Mission Impossible started to have diminishing returns after covid, and if you adjust the films for inflation, the final 2 films have made the least from the franchise. They have a similar story with the Transformers franchise, which hit great heights under Michael Bay’s direction, but the last 3 films have all struggled massively at the box office. So it certainly feels like Paramount are struggling, so purchasing a company with established property, that is almost guaranteed to be a hit like Superman and Batman. Paramount also continue to release films in cinemas, and that’s where they’ve had big hits, with the likes of Top Gun: Maverick and Sonic the Hedgehog so know that the cinema is a viable option, and for them proven to be a bigger success than their streaming service.

However, there is a concern about the merger from a business point of view. Some people are concerned, due to the fact that the bid is backed by foreign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which means in theory that a foreign nation could have an influence on American media, especially their news channels. But further more, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is one of Paramount’s financial partners, and there for then worry how easy it could be again for Donald Trump and his political party to influence American media, especially after Trump has already tried to impose tariffs on any film not made in the US. So, at the very least, Netflix doesn’t have those ties, so from a creative stand point, depending on how the deal could play out for Paramount.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I’d infinitely rather Warner Bros was purchased that someone wasn’t going to be a lose lose situation. From a cinema, point of view, I absolutely would rather Paramount were successful in their bid, I trust them much more to continue to release films in the cinema, but at what cost could that be from a creativity point of view if they start to have a tie to the US government. Where as Netflix, seem to be the opposite are happy letting creators put out the content they want to release, but could have very limited release windows with blockbusters including DC studio films in the near future. Only time will tell, which bid will ultimately be successful and the future of what the cinema industy could look like.

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