Full Analysis of What a Warner Bros. Acquisition Could Mean for the Movie Theater Industry
By Daniel Loria, Chad Kennerk, and Rebecca Pahle
What We Know
Netflix beat out bids from Paramount and Comcast to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming, offering $27.75 per share (including $4.50 in Netflix stock).
The deal does not include Warner Bros. Discovery’s television business, which includes CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery, as well as free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as Discovery+ and Bleacher Report. Those assets will be spun off to a new, independent company to be known as Global Networks Discovery. The spin-off is expected to be completed by Q3 2026, at which point the Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros. can begin its process.
Netflix expects a 12- to 18-month timeframe to complete its acquisition of Warner Bros. This would put the streamer’s control of the studio at some point in 2027 and would not affect any 2026 Warner Bros. releases.
Paramount claims Warner Bros.’ handling of its sale process was unfairly biased toward one pre-determined buyer: Netflix. It has since submitted a revised offer to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery (including the streaming business) in an all-cash $30 per-share deal. If rebuffed, Paramount could make additional offers or attempt to go around the Warner Bros. board and approach shareholders directly with its offer in a hostile takeover of the company.
Can This Pass Scrutiny from Regulators?
Netflix is confident it can get a deal done, noting that its deal adds new divisions to its existing company rather than consolidating two companies into one. As such, it claims it will have minimal redundancies in incorporating a full-fledged theatrical division into its ranks.
Paramount counters that the Netflix bid is Dead on Arrival and unlikely to pass regulatory scrutiny, believing its own bid to be the most likely to get approved.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is the most prominent politician to express concerns about a sale of Warner Bros. She called the Netflix acquisition, “an anti-monopoly nightmare” that would “create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices over what and how they watch.” Paramount’s bid, if successful, would be “a five-alarm antitrust fire and exactly what our anti-monopoly laws are written to prevent,” per the Senator.
Concerns about the proposed acquisitions have arisen across the political spectrum, with critiques coming from as varied a group as Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS), who said that a Netflix/Warner Bros. deal would be a “textbook horizontal Antitrust problem”; Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who cites “Netflix’s own statements dismissing movie theaters as ‘outdated'” as evidence that a Warner Bros. deal would “diminish incentives to produce new content and major theatrical releases”; and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, who said the Netflix deal raises “a lot of antitrust red flags,” adding on X to “Buckle up for an intense antitrust hearing in the Senate.”
On the Democrats’ side of the aisle, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), along with Senators Warren and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) penned a letter expressing their concerns about any Warner Bros. acquisition in strong terms, calling for the Department of Justice to “conduct a full, non-biased review” to ensure that “any potential transaction involving Warner Bros. is grounded in the law, not President Trump’s political favoritism.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that the “proposed [Netflix] deal, and any other, should be closely scrutinized.” At the same time, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) took to X to call the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal a “nightmare” that would lead to “more price hikes, ads, & cookie-cutter content, less creative control for artists, and lower pay for workers.”
President Trump has said he’ll “be involved” in the regulatory process of a Warner Bros. acquisition but has avoided publicly taking sides on the duelling bids, stating at different times that Sarandos is “a great person” but that “Netflix’s bid could be a problem,” citing the outsize market share of the combined company. Soon after Paramount’s bid was announced, a regulatory filing revealed that the private equity firm run by the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is one of the parties involved in that proposed deal.
Reactions from the Industry
The exhibition trade groups Cinema United and UNIC have voiced their strong opposition to Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros., claiming it could risk up to 25% of annual box office earnings. Cinema United President & CEO Michael O’Leary calls the deal “an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business.”
UNIC, Europe’s trade association representing cinemas, also expressed its opposition to a Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros., with its CEO, Laura Houlgatte, stating: “Both in its words and actions, Netflix has time and again made it clear that it doesn’t believe in cinemas and their business model.”
Industry guilds have also come together to express their own concerns about a potential Warner Bros. acquisition. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) issued a stern warning, saying in a joint statement from the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) that “the world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent.” The WGA went on to say that the outcome would eliminate industry jobs, push down wages, and worsen conditions and raise prices for consumers. The Guild also stressed that the acquisition would reduce the volume and diversity of content. They ended their statement by emphasizing that “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.”
In a conversation with The Ankler, WGA West president Elaine Low commented on the larger issue of industry consolidation, expressing that “there is no preferred winner. Our philosophy here, our belief here, is that whoever wins, writers lose. There are problems with both of those acquisitions. This is not buyer-specific; this is us looking at this as a massive antitrust issue, where we believe the government really needs to step in. This potential merger is going to not just hurt all industry workers but [also] consumers, who inevitably end up paying the cost for these mergers.”
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) expressed its own reservations, highlighting the importance of a competitive industry that encourages creativity. “The news that Netflix had secured exclusive rights to negotiate for WBD 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.” The Guild also announced that it plans to meet with Netflix to discuss the merger, saying, “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.”
While serving as the head of the international jury at the Red Sea Film Festival, director Sean Baker expressed reservations about commenting on the merger to see how things play out. Still, he stressed, “Filmmakers have to put our foot down.” As reported by Variety, the Oscar winner went on to say that “we should not be reducing theatrical windows; we should be expanding [them].” Baker reiterated that this is how filmmakers want audiences to see their work and shared that he plans to secure a 100-day theatrical window for his next film. “When you’re going directly to streaming, it diminishes the importance of a film. The theatrical experience elevates the importance. The way you present it to the world is a very important thing,” Baker added.
Before the merger announcement, filmmaker James Cameron, whose Avatar: Fire and Ash releases on December 19th, recently appeared on Puck News’ The Town with Matthew Belloni, where Belloni prompted the director to share his thoughts on a Netflix takeover of Warner Bros. Cameron said that Warner Bros. would “just become a streamer.” Adding that losing a theatrical major would have “increased that avalanche, that sort of downhill trend, because the thing is, streaming got its foothold with the artistic base that they did—I’m not just saying Netflix, I’m saying all of them—by throwing crazy money and attracting the A-list talent and then pulling the carpet out from underneath that.”
According to a Variety exclusive, anonymous A-listers lobbied Congress against the Netflix-WBD acquisition, saying the streamer would “hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace.” The anonymous collective chose to identify themselves only as “concerned feature film producers,” with one well-placed source confirming to Variety that the group includes several prominent filmmakers.
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) shared concerns via social media, stating that “producers are rightfully concerned about Netflix’s intended acquisition of one of our industry’s most storied and meaningful studios.” The PGA went on to express that “our industry, together with policymakers, must find a way forward that protects producers’ livelihoods and real theatrical distribution, and that fosters creativity, promotes opportunities for workers and artists, empowers consumers with choices, and upholds freedom of speech. This is the test that the Netflix deal must pass. Our legacy studios are more than content libraries—within their vaults are the character and culture of our nation.”
SAG-AFTRA, representing roughly 160,000 performers and media professionals, released a measured statement, noting that the union would evaluate the proposal and reserve further comment until the implications for its members were clear. “The potential Netflix/Warner Bros transaction is a consolidation that may serve the financial interests of shareholders of both companies, but which raises many serious questions about its impact on the future of the entertainment industry, and especially the human creative talent whose livelihoods and careers depend on it,” said SAG-AFTRA.
“This $82B transaction reaffirms the true value of legacy media companies and the long-term economic prosperity they create due in large part to the contribution of the creative talent who are at the core of their success,” SAG-AFTRA continued. The actors union stressed that a deal at this level “must result in more creation and more production, not less. It must do so in an environment of respect for the talent involved.” SAG-AFTRA shared that its position on the transaction will be based on the best interests of its members, following a thorough analysis of the deal details.
Jane Fonda, who received the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award at the 2025 Actor Awards (formerly known as the SAG Awards), released an urgent op-ed on The Ankler detailing her thoughts on how the WBD deal puts Hollywood and democracy at risk. “The threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself.”
What We Don’t Know: Impact on Windows, Number of Releases, and Film Availability
Netflix has had a limited investment in theatrical exhibition over the years. It currently runs New York’s Paris Theatre (acquired in 2019) and Los Angeles’ Egyptian Theatre (acquired in 2020). On the distribution side, Netflix has primarily used theatrical for awards-calssifying runs, to market its movies ahead of their streaming premiere, and as a means to recruit filmmakers to its platform.
In a call with press and investors, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos assured listeners that Warner Bros. releases under the company will continue having a theatrical release, but hinted they would do so under shorter exclusivity windows.
The longest theatrical exclusivity window Netflix has given a film is 30 days, for Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story in 2019. A limited number of other prestige titles, such as Roma (2018) and The Irishman (2019), have received exclusive runs of three to four weeks. The top films from Netflix’s 2025 theatrical slate have enjoyed exclusivity runs between two and three weeks.
Major circuits have eschewed booking most Netflix titles due to their shorter exclusivity windows and paltry theatrical marketing support. As a result, the widest theatrical releases under Netflix have each gone to slightly over 600 theaters: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Don’t Look Up (2023), and Frankenstein (2025).
Netflix has found its best theatrical success with its event cinema releases, notably KPop Demon Hunters—the only theatrical release from the streamer to top the box office. The title represents the widest location count in the United States, hitting over 2,500 cinemas in its October re-release.
Film rental terms on Netflix releases are reportedly more favorable to exhibitors than those of legacy studios, due to a shorter exclusivity window before being made available on their streaming platform. Should a shorter, 17-day, exclusivity window be applied to all future Warner Bros. releases under Netflix, exhibitors would likely require drastically reduced film rental terms to those offered by rival studios to consider booking them.
Like every other major studio, Warner Bros. has reduced its number of theatrical releases since the pandemic. The studio released an average of 20 new films in the five years leading up to the pandemic, but has only averaged 11 new releases in the five years since: a 55% reduction in output to theaters. Exhibitors fear of further reductions to a Warner Bros. release slate under Netflix.
Paramount has promised 30 theatrical releases per year under its combined control of both studios. It’s an enticing proposal, precisely what exhibitors would like to hear, but would represent a significant change in the way both companies have done business in the post-pandemic era. Paramount has averaged eight new theatrical releases per year since 2021, down from 11 in the five years leading up to the pandemic. The last time Paramount and Warner Bros. combined for at least 30 new theatrical films was in 2018, with 20 Warner Bros. titles and 11 from Paramount.
Finally, what impact, if any, would a Warner Bros. acquisition have on repertory titles from the studio? As exhibitors venture into the studio vault for mid-week and off-peak programming opportunities, there are concerns of decreased content availability on repertory series, as is already the case following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.
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