{"id":434082,"date":"2025-12-08T21:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/434082\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T21:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:09:10","slug":"ted-sarandos-says-netflix-warner-bros-deal-wont-kill-theatrical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/434082\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Sarandos Says Netflix-Warner Bros Deal Won’t Kill Theatrical"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the wake of freaking out the industry and theater owners with its winning bid for Warner Bros on Thursday<\/a>, followed by Paramount\u2019s hostile takeover proposal<\/a> this morning, Netflix<\/a> co-CEOs Ted Sarandos<\/a> and Greg Peters jumped on a Wall Street call again Monday to pour cold water on the fire, specifically as it relates to theatrical.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn this transaction, we pick up three business we\u2019re not currently in, so we have no redundancies currently,\u201d said Sarandos. \u201cOne of them is a motion picture studio with a theatrical distribution machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re deeply committed to releasing those movies exactly the way they would release those movies today,\u201d said Sarandos about staying true to the theatrical model once the streamer snaps up the 102-year-old motion picture studio.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll three of these new businesses, we want to keep operating largely as they are,\u201d he added, specifying that the other two are Warners\u2019 TV production business and HBO.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe theatrical business \u2014 we talked a lot about in the past about wanting to do it, because we\u2019ve never been in that business. When this deal closes, we are in that business. And we\u2019re going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo date, Netflix has used theatrical as a means to qualify movies for the Oscars via limited releases and unreported grosses. Technically, its first wide release in north of 1,000 theaters was the late August 2-day play of KPop Demon Hunters. The movie played all circuits except for the No. 1 chain AMC and made $19 million, ranking as Netflix\u2019s first No. 1 title at the weekend domestic box office. Note, the movie hit theaters after becoming the most watched movie ever on Netflix at 325.1 million global views.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince Netflix won the bid for Warner Bros<\/a> (which doesn\u2019t include linear networks), Sarandos hasn\u2019t given an exact number when it comes to days for films in an exclusive theatrical window. On Friday, he said he\u2019d like to see the window \u201cevolve.\u201d Today, he changed his tune.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf we did this deal 24 months ago, all those movies we saw this year do so well for Warner Bros would have been released in the same way in theaters. I\u2019m talking about Minecraft, I\u2019m talking about Superman, I\u2019m talking about Weapons, I\u2019m talking about Sinners,\u201d said the executive, who cut his teeth in home video, referring to Warner Bros\u2019 strong $4 billion-plus global grossing 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThese movies will be released on Netflix through theaters the way Warner Bros did it before, but with the Warner Bros operating entity. It\u2019s really important the way they create, and the way they drive value. We didn\u2019t buy this company to destroy that value.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tSome studio executives Friday expressed their fear that the Netflix purchase of Warner Bros meant a death knell for theatrical and its downstream model, which generates money perpetually for any studio through library titles via various global windows. \u201cWhy not just continue to license titles at a fraction of the cost? Why buy Warner Bros?\u201d expressed one studio exec about Netflix\u2019s interest in Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are calmer attitudes as well in Hollywood. Not everyone believes the sky is falling. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne studio alone can\u2019t unilaterally collapse the window,\u201d said another motion picture exec, while one optimistic exhibition exec told us, \u201cIf Netflix wanted to really destroy theatrical, they would have bought all three circuits for $20 billion, significantly less than the cost of Warner Bros.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAgain, where everyone is wait-and-see with Sarandos is on the theatrical window. It\u2019s not a secret he\u2019s a proponent of 17-days versus the 45-day exclusive theatrical window championed by the top three circuits. One of the reasons why Netflix\u2019s latest Rian Johnson-directed threequel Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery didn\u2019t play AMC, Regal and Cinemark, is because Netflix refused to give the movie a 30-day window before streaming. Hence, the top three chains refused to play the movie, which has had sellouts in arthouse theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn a phoner today with analysts, Paramount<\/a>\u2018s David Ellison promised 30-plus movies annually if Paramount succeeds in its purchase of Warner Bros Discovery. Ellison also mentioned how Hollywood talent like James Cameron and Jane Fonda believe a Netflix-Warner Bros marriage \u201cas a disaster for theatrical films.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of freaking out the industry and theater owners with its winning bid for Warner Bros…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,4659,198868,15329,161221,67,132,68,1021],"class_list":{"0":"post-434082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-netflix","10":"tag-netflix-wb","11":"tag-paramount","12":"tag-ted-sarandos","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115685999623851471","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434082","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=434082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}