In October, the newly re-split Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) put itself up on the action block. Netflix had the winning bid, and will be purchasing the famed studio for $82.7 billion. This sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with industry guilds, organizations, and stars speaking against such a deal.
Directors Guild of America Speaks Out
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) spoke out before a deal was confirmed, saying it “raises significant concerns for the DGA.”
“We believe that a vibrant, competitive industry — one that fosters creativity and encourages genuine competition for talent — is essential to safeguarding the careers and creative rights of directors and their teams. We will be meeting with Netflix to outline our concerns and better understand their vision for the future of the company. While we undertake this due diligence we will not be commenting further,” a spokesperson said.
Likewise, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) issued a statement. “The world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent. The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers. Industry workers along with the public are already impacted by only a few powerful companies maintaining tight control over what consumers can watch on television, on streaming, and in theaters. This merger must be blocked.”
Open Letter From Anonymous Producers
A group of anonymous “concerned feature film producers” sent an email to several members of Congress. Refusing to sign their names “not out of cowardice,” but due to possible retaliation for criticism of the deal.
The letter explained how this acquisition would “effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace.” The deal would give Netflix so much influence in the market that the company could realistically reduce the footprint of theatrical movies. This would cause subsequent licensing fees paid in post-theatrical windows to be lowered significantly.
Co-CEO of Netflix Ted Sarandos, has repeatedly said the streamers’ model is independent of theaters. A sentiment Rian Johnson backs up with his battles to get traditional wide-spread theatrical releases for his incredibly popular “Knives Out” films.
Sarandos *may* be changing his tune on that front. “We’ve released about 30 films into theaters this year, so it’s not like we have this opposition to movies in the theaters,” Sarandos said during an investor call earlier today. “My pushback has been mostly in the fact of the long exclusive windows, which we don’t really think are that consumer friendly. Netflix movies will take the same strides they have, which is some of them do have a short run in the theater beforehand, but our primary goal is to bring first-run movies to our members, because that’s what they’re looking for.”
But this statement raises concerns that these theatrical windows may become as short as 2 weeks.
Jane Fonda’s Thoughts
On December 4th, a day before the deal was struck, Fonda wrote an op-ed piece explaining why consolidation between WBD and Netflix, Paramount Skydance, or Comcast NBCUniversal would be bad for the industry.
“Consolidation at this scale would be catastrophic for an industry built on free expression, for the creative workers who power it, and for consumers who depend on a free, independent media ecosystem to understand the world,” Fonda wrote. “It will mean fewer jobs, fewer opportunities to sell work, fewer creative risks, fewer news sources and far less diversity in the stories Americans get to hear.”
Job scarcity for performers, writers, editors, directors, etc., is hardly a new issue. As Fonda said, “consolidation will lessen the overall demand for their skills. And when only a handful of mega-companies control the entire pipeline, they gain the power to steamroll every guild — SAG-AFTRA, the WGA, the PGA, the DGA, IATSE, everyone — making it harder for workers to bargain, harder to stand up for themselves and harder to make a living at all.”
Making work even harder to come by and losing the power of collective bargaining would be a devastating double whammy. But, as Fonda continues to explain, it’s even more sinister than that.
Political Pressure
“What terrifies me — and should terrify anyone who cares about a free society — is how this administration has used anticipated mergers as tools of political pressure and censorship,” Fonda continued.
The current administration has a documented history of using political pressure to censor creators. She uses several instances, like when the FCC launched an investigation into the editing of a “60 Minutes” segment interviewing then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Despite the investigation being considered baseless, Paramount-Skydance paid President Trump $16 million to settle. As well as using a former administration ambassador as a newly installed “bias monitor” to oversee all editing at CBS. When Stephen Colbert criticized this corporate kowtowing, he was fired. Followed by 2,000 more people being let go at CBS, including the Race and Culture Unit.
Fonda goes on to note this kind of censorship is not a partisan issue, using the criticism made by Republican Senator Ted Cruz as an example. Cruz says using merger reviews to pressure media companies “creates a dangerous precedent.” A precedent that could easily be used to silence anyone, regardless of political affiliation. “They will silence us,” he warned.
As you can imagine, the opposition to this deal is only expected to grow. We’ll keep you posted on updates about this situation as it develops.
