{"id":427312,"date":"2025-12-05T21:15:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/427312\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T21:15:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:15:20","slug":"the-biggest-horror-properties-that-will-be-impacted-by-netflix-purchasing-warner-bros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/427312\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Horror Properties That Will Be Impacted By Netflix Purchasing Warner Bros."},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest headline of the week, and one of the biggest headlines of the entire year, broke early this morning when Netflix<\/strong> announced<\/a> that they are on the road to acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery<\/strong>, an $82.7 billion deal that will grant the monopolizing streaming service ownership of the Warner Bros. film and television studios, as well as HBO and HBO Max.<\/p>\n

A definitive agreement has been struck, and while the deal won\u2019t be officially closed until late 2026 \u2013 after the previously announced separation of WBD\u2019s Global Networks division, Discovery Global, into a new publicly-traded company, which is now expected to be completed in Q3 2026 \u2013 it\u2019s hard not to already feel and at least ponder the ramifications of the purchase.<\/p>\n

Netflix announced via press release this morning, \u201cThis acquisition brings together two pioneering entertainment businesses, combining Netflix\u2019s innovation, global reach and best-in-class streaming service with Warner Bros.\u2019 century-long legacy of world-class storytelling. Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix\u2019s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission has always been to entertain the world,\u201d said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. \u201cBy combining Warner Bros.\u2019 incredible library of shows and movies\u2014from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends\u2014with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we\u2019ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most basic things you can expect are that the HBO and HBO Max libraries will eventually be rolled into Netflix, while the streamer promises that they \u201cexpect to maintain Warner Bros.\u2019 current operations and build on its strengths, including theatrical releases for films.\u201d Netflix, however, is already talking about shrinking theatrical release windows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Horrifying? Yes. And speaking of horrifying\u2026<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u2018The Conjuring\u2019<\/p>\n

Thinking ahead into late 2026 and beyond, what does Netflix acquiring the vast Warner Bros. library mean for the horror genre specifically? Between Warner Bros. and the WB-owned New Line Cinema, Netflix stands to become the new home for several big time horror franchises, including Final Destination<\/strong> and The Conjuring Universe<\/strong>, both of which happened to just release record-setting new installments onto the big screen earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Other properties in the WB\/New Line arsenal include The Evil Dead, Gremlins, Mortal Kombat<\/strong>, and Beetlejuice<\/strong>, with new installments in the first three franchises already in the current pipeline. S\u00e9bastien Vani\u010dek\u2019s <\/strong>Evil Dead Burn<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>is set for theaters on July 24, 2026, while another (untitled) Evil Dead movie is in development from director\u00a0Francis Galluppi.<\/p>\n

A new installment in the Gremlins franchise<\/a> was also just announced back in November, with Chris Columbus directing for a planned November 19, 2027 theatrical release.<\/p>\n

As for Mortal Kombat, big screen sequel Mortal Kombat 2<\/strong><\/a> is currently dated for May 8, 2026, with a third installment in the movie franchise also already announced.<\/p>\n

Warner Bros. is also the distributor for the Legendary-produced MonsterVerse<\/strong><\/a>, with latest installment Godzilla x Kong: Supernova<\/strong><\/a> dated for WB release on March 26, 2027.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018IT: Welcome to Derry\u2019<\/p>\n

Another big horror property currently under the WB umbrella is Stephen King\u2019s IT<\/strong>, which just spawned the HBO Max television series \u201cIT: Welcome to Derry<\/strong>.\u201d The series has a three-season arc mapped out, last we heard, with each new season jumping back in time by 27 years to fully explore the origin story of Pennywise and IT\u2019s enduring impact on Derry, Maine.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s of course far too early to know if those plans will change once Netflix takes over, just as it\u2019s far too early to really comment on the future handling of any of these properties.<\/p>\n

On that particular note, we also can\u2019t help but wonder about the Friday the 13th <\/strong>and A Nightmare on Elm Street<\/strong> franchises, which have been going through their own legal battles for the last several years. Both are at least in bed with WB\/New Line on the distribution side, which has led Friday the 13th to come back to life through the \u201cJason Universe\u201d initiative that removes the title \u201cFriday the 13th\u201d from the proceedings. Jason will return to the screen next year in the A24 and Peacock series \u201cCrystal Lake<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d a prequel to the original Friday the 13th.<\/p>\n

The \u201cJason Universe\u201d team is also promising that a new movie is in early development.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018A Nightmare on Elm Street\u2019<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s A Nightmare on Elm Street, which hasn\u2019t shown a sign of life in fifteen years now. As Bloody Disgusting reported way back in 2019,\u00a0the U.S. rights to\u00a0A Nightmare on Elm Street reverted back to Wes Craven\u2019s estate, while Warner Bros.\/New Line Cinema continues to own the international rights to the franchise and its iconic killer, Freddy Krueger.<\/p>\n

Robert Englund told Indiewire<\/a> just last month, \u201cThere are so many people involved who have a piece of the action. When Wes passed away, he left an awful lot of rights to his estate. He has many many rights that he worked out between character titles and names and plot and things like that. New Line Cinema obviously has a big hand in it. And much of that was surrendered to Ted Turner, then went to Warner Bros. So Warner Bros. has a huge piece of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for now and through much of next year, as WBD CEO David Zaslav wrote in a memo to staff<\/a>\u00a0this morning, \u201cUntil the transaction closes, WBD and Netflix remain separate companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for more on this massive Hollywood merger as we learn it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018Gremlins\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest headline of the week, and one of the biggest headlines of the entire year, broke early…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":427313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[32712,171,1322,476,66906,70772,53,4659,68202,68974,198859,9825,67,132,68,1021],"class_list":{"0":"post-427312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-beetlejuice","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-final-destination","12":"tag-gremlins","13":"tag-mortal-kombat","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-netflix","16":"tag-the-conjuring","17":"tag-the-conjuring-universe","18":"tag-the-evil-dead","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115669037773552697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}