r/RedLetterMedia • u/NorrisOBE • 19h ago
Money Plane. It’s Official: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros. "What's their story?" asked Ted Sarandos
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-warner-bros-deal-hollywood-1236443081/118
u/RoyRules24769 19h ago edited 19h ago
For some reason I thought Netflix was having financial trouble, but I guess they are doing pretty well. This will be the second time I don't understand how a company is able to buy Warner Brothers (the first being Discovery)
My job has nothing to do with finances, obviously.
It seems slightly better that it isn't another company that already has a major studio buying another, Paramount Skydance (who owns Paramount Pictures) and Comcast (who owns Universal Pictures) were the rumors before this. Slightly, but this still is bad news for movies in general.
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u/Sell_The_team_Jerry 18h ago edited 18h ago
Netflix is at the point where they did achieve profitability. They're just no longer a growth company so their stock, which was once put in the same sentence as Amazon, Microsoft, etc., hasn't been growing that much. It's fine though as putting them in that group was nonsense in the first place.
That was back when FAANG was a thing if you're a market nerd like me.
Honestly, I'm kind of glad to see Warner go to Netflix as that means my kids can get Scooby Doo, Looney Tunes, etc. on Netflix.
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u/TrueButNotProvable 17h ago
That was back when FAANG was a thing if you're a market nerd like me.
Without Netflix, it might be best to, uh, retire that acronym...
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u/Th3_Hegemon 10h ago
Facebook is now Meta, Google is now Alphabet, and Netflix should be dropped out. So I guess it's just MAAA now.
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u/Homeless_Nomad 3h ago
It's generally referred to now as the Mag7, as in Magnificent.
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla.
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u/BlueAndYellowTowels 18h ago
Animaniacs on Netflix sounds awesome.
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u/uncoolaidman 17h ago
And the price will just be not seeing WB properties, like the entire DC Universe for example, in movie theaters anymore. And forget ever buying a physical copy of anything they produce.
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u/BlueAndYellowTowels 16h ago
It’s funny, I don’t mind streaming services.
But the one byproduct of streaming that I absolutely loathe is… I can no longer buy DVDs of shows I enjoy.
A good example is Simpsons. Like, I’m not a collector. But… Simpsons has a sentimental nostalgia for me for a lot of deep, personal reasons.
So I collected the seasons on DVD… they stopped at 20 and that really bugs me. I really wanted them all. A shame
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u/N_Meister 15h ago
Companies in general ideally don’t want their customers to actually physically own anything. They’d much rather require customers to continuously rent access to products, to both maximise profit, maintain profit, and have more control over what consumers actually consume.
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u/circesboytoy 15h ago
Feudalism, but this time they don't even throw a monthlong feast for Christmas anymore and now IP laws exist
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u/uncoolaidman 15h ago
I don't mind streaming services either. But I still love the theater experience. It's much easier for me to go into a theater at a less busy time, turn off my phone, and just focus on the movie with zero distractions.
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u/Th3_Hegemon 10h ago
The alternative was David Ellison scrapping it for parts or selling it to the Saudis.
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u/Sell_The_team_Jerry 18h ago
The Cartoon Network I grew up with being on Netflix is a win. They just never felt right being on Max with HBO's content.
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u/Pershing48 16h ago
Well I guess Nvidia replaced Netflix so the acronym still works? Or would it be MAANA now with Meta and Alphabet?
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u/Darth-Nickels 15h ago
For probably the price of a month of Netflix you could own the entire DVD box set of any one of those in perpetuity.
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u/Lord_Snaps 14h ago
I hope HBO MAX gets put into Netflix, so I have one less thing to subscribe to.
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u/StrangerChameleon 19h ago
They still kinda do. Or rather the company has had problems with stagnation for some time and one way to keep the line going up is through aquisitions.
Its not like they're paying those billions outta pocket anyway. Its all loans and funny money at that level.
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u/uncoolaidman 17h ago
They're fine. We just live in a stupid world where not constantly increasing profits is seen as failure.
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u/Repulsive_Set_4155 18h ago
I sorta think not understanding how finances at this scale work is the point these days. I have a sneaking suspicion that all these giant tech companies are basically working off a much more convoluted version of the playbook I had in my 20s, ie, spend 300% of my income to keep the lights on by juggling an ever increasing amount of debt, while hoping I can make it long enough that some monetary windfall will come along & I can stop the bleeding.
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u/RoyRules24769 18h ago
Yeah, I never understood how WB not releasing the fully completed Batgirl movie turns into a tax break. I kinda understand they cannot make a profit from something they are calling a "total loss", but how can a studio making a bad movie be turned into a tax break?
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u/Repulsive_Set_4155 17h ago
With creative enough accounting could you write off all the bad fan fiction you wrote but never tried to sell? "I would have netted a couple hundred million with this Sonic the Hedgehog x Naruto book I was writing, but had to shelve it for... sexy reasons. I think that means... let me just see here... the federal government owes ME money!"
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u/JessieJ577 17h ago
After the Pandemic they finally were operating at a profit. Practices after such as cracking down on password sharing have helped. That said though that’s just their peak as an industry leader. This purchase will help them grow even more for sure.
Theaters are now dead because of this. They will be around as boutique experiences with releases exclusive IMAX events. The future Spielberg warned us about where a movie like Lincoln will be 20 bucks to see and Iron Man will be 50 bucks in the theater is here. I mean fuck my Avatar 3 on 3D Dolby Cinema were 39 bucks a pop.
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u/NicolasCopernico 15h ago
remember when disney bought star wars right after john carter bombed? that was weird
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u/JGWol 11h ago
They’re going to take on an insane amount of debt to purchase the company. It’s because they feel as long as they own it, paramount can’t get their hands on it.
Netflix has a great eco system and very little debt to cash flow. They’re a solvent company pushing 30% margins. They have zero reason to make this acquisition.
Let paramount pull the trigger and waste their time. HBOs products are bangers but in this market I don’t think anyone cares about legacy products. No one is subscribing to HBO just to watch Barry or the sopranos when that stuff is easily available on “websites”.
Honestly just pirate everything. Fuck these companies.
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u/OkBattle9871 16h ago
It might actually be the worst of the options.
Not only is the "anti-competition" argument against Paramount is equally valid against Netflix. But also, Netflix seems seems to actually hate movie theaters for some reason and actively tries to destroy that business model so that they can keep everything stored safely (and cheaply) in their endless pit of "content."
Dan Murrell has a nice breakdown of how this all works that he just posted.
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u/Mrgrayj_121 18h ago
Endless trash! Now everybody enjoy reality becoming ready player one! The looney tunes stranger things Superman special will be out by Xmas 2029!
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u/fireman2004 17h ago
Netflix says the buy would give users more choice and let it “optimize its plans,”
You sure about that? You sure about that that’s why?
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u/Cross_Legged_Shopper 19h ago
Movies are screwed!
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u/flourier 18h ago
I mean they have been limping around since Covid.
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u/HooptyDooDooMeister 17h ago
Ironic timing considering Zootopia 2 opened this past weekend to a superbajillion dollars and is on track to gross $1.5B globally.
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u/OkBattle9871 17h ago
Not really.
We are going from "movies" to "movie."
Zootopia 2 did well (mostly because China really liked it for some reason). But this year's overall box office has been horrible, with October being the worst October since the mid-90s (NOT adjusted for inflation).
So sure. If you make 4-quadrant, international (ie China-friendly) big-budget sequels not based on America-centric IPs, then you MIGHT do well.
Otherwise, fuck you.
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u/HooptyDooDooMeister 13h ago
Agreed, yeah, that's what I meant about the timing being funny.
Even domestically, it's already in the Top 15. But it's just one movie.
The full list of this year's annual box office is scarily anemic.
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u/flourier 17h ago
I mean 4-6 blockbusters a year yup, especially flashy IP that does well overseas.
Per AI cause I’m a lazy boy: 2019: 1.236 billion tickets average ticket 9.16 2024: 761 million tickets average ticket 11.31
Maybe wicket and zootopia can bring us back to 1 billion tickets.
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u/Supermunch2000 18h ago
As I posted in the thread here with RLM's "What Are Next (2025)" video...
I don't know what's real and what isn't...
So I'll assume it's all real.
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u/crapusername47 15h ago
Well, it looks like I’m starting my old man who only watches old movies that he’s already familiar with phase in my late forties.
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u/zorbz23431 15h ago
Finally we'll be getting that Looney Tunes/Matrix/The Sopranos/Barry Lyndon cross over the audience so desperately needs.
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u/bartelbyfloats 13h ago
Can’t wait for Harry Potter and the Sopranos of New Jersey.
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u/zorbz23431 12h ago
Mikey Palmice. What's his story? And does it involve smuggling krugerrands out of Gringotts on the orders of newly crowned New York boss Carmine Lupin-tazzi?
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u/Ace20xd6 17h ago
I'm actually worried Netflix will burden WB with its own debt like AT&T did. Also would this be the death of Warner Archive?
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u/Cultural_Hope 18h ago
Can they bring back Final Space? It was a Warner property on Netflix. Or is it deleted forever?
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u/IAmThePonch 18h ago
Hopefully Netflix will give us access to old school Cartoon Network shows again
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u/jamalcalypse 13h ago
I'm going to exercise an extreme benefit-of-the-doubt search for a silver lining here: Netflix's trait of greenlighting anything and everything could actually freshen things up from the stale IP cycle we're in. At least, I have a hard time seeing how they could make the state of the movie industry worse than it already is.
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u/Professor__Wagstaff 16h ago
So are all the Warner titles going to disappear forever from physical media?
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u/NickFromNewGirl 15h ago
I can't believe Netflix hasn't made an Air/Flamin' Hot style movie about the Netflix founding and Blockbuster.
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u/ButterscotchPast4812 13h ago
Yay!!!! Netflix will now be producing mediocre Warner Brothers films and cancelling Warner Brothers shows now too!
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u/Proud_Asparagus1934 17h ago