Intro for December 5, 2025

Dear Gossips,  

I was all set to write about a specific piece of Warner Bros. Discovery merger nonsense, but then the news broke—Netflix won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. The two companies will enter into exclusive talks to close the deal. What the timeline of that looks like, who knows, but this process has been very fast so far. WBD only stated an intention to sell in October, and barely two months later they’re in negotiations.

For Netflix’s part, the advantages are myriad. They suck at developing films that hit big with audiences—KPop Demon Hunters is their first big success in that area, and that was originally developed by Sony—and Warner Brothers gives them an entire studio of people who know how to make blockbusters, never mind they’re getting smaller production units like DC Studios in the deal, too. (What this will mean for Superman and Batman, who can never be sure.) They can also fold HBO/Max into the streaming platform, adding more prestige to their TV side. 

It also potentially gives Netflix a way to robustly distribute films theatrically without losing face after staking their whole business on a streaming-first and mostly only model. Rather than subsume Warners like Disney did to Fox, they could leave it mostly alone, and let Warners continue releasing theatrical films, which then transition to Netflix-exclusive streaming titles down the line. I’m sure there will be a LOT of discussion about how long those release windows should be, but Warners represents a way for Netflix to meaningfully participate in the community, rather than just buying up the odd repertory theater here and there and playing their movies for three weeks. I am honestly more scared for HBO right now, since it might just disappear into Netflix’s content firehose entirely.

Make no mistake, this deal ultimately benefits no one but CEOs and the top shareholders at WBD and Netflix. This means another legacy studio being swallowed up, it means further contracting an industry already struggling, it means thousands more people out of work, at a time when AI is already driving job insecurity and anxiety. We’re racing to destroy the film industry, which supported a robust middle class for 100 years.

Why? CEOs, I guess. Nobody ever wants these deals except CEOs. We’re going to end up in the Buy’N’Large future of Wall-E in which one company provides everything and all of it is dreck. But as long as those CEOs get their nine-figure golden parachutes, who cares, right? Jane Fonda put it best in an op-ed published just yesterday: We’re fighting for scraps.

It will be interesting to see how smoothly Netflix can manage their acquisition, though, since just yesterday Paramount Skydance—which started this whole thing by making three offers to buy WBD in October—threw a baby tantrum via letter, complaining that the bidding process was “unfair” and “tilted” toward Netflix, which made a mostly cash offer reportedly at $28/share. This is concerning because Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is the son of billionaire Trump buddy Larry Ellison, and the Paramount letter basically asks the administration to review the bidding/acquisition if it goes against Paramount.

We’ve already seen this administration is willing to use merger power to try and control media companies, so the fallout from that letter could be interesting. Obviously, it did not put off either WBD or Netflix from trying to make a deal happen (a deal which does not include WBD’s cable division, which means David Ellison could still acquire CNN). Now we just have to see if the president takes an interest, or if he decides to let it go. I assume he’ll say some sh-t about it, but will his FTC and DOJ get involved?

Live long and gossip,

Sarah