On Friday, Dec. 5, news broke that Warner Bros., one of the most successful movie studios in the world, is being sold to Netflix for $82.7 billion. It would be the largest sale of a movie studio in history. The news came after months of reporting that Warner Bros. was up for sale. This sale, regardless of who the buyer is, will spell disastrous effects for the movie industry, movie theaters, and for consumers. Warner Bros., run by David Zaslav, has been in the financial dumps as of late. Zaslav, now one of the most hated executives in Hollywood among creatives in the business, has saddled the studio with debt, cancelled fully finished movies and shows for the sake of tax write-offs, and gutted the streaming libraries of HBO and Turner Classic Movies. Such decisions had already led to directors such as Christopher Nolan to flee the studio.
Ever since Warner Bros. has been on sale, the most probable buyer has been Paramount Skydance, led by their CEO David Ellison. David is the son of billionaire donor and friend to U.S. President Donald Trump, Larry Ellison. Paramount has the backing of President Trump, who would allow the deal to happen, and in exchange, Ellison would most likely make major changes to CNN at the request of President Trump. Ellison already controls CBS News, which has recently seen major turnover.
The news on Friday was a major surprise that will have potentially disastrous effects. If you’re someone who likes watching a movie in a movie theater — if you like going with your friends, buying popcorn, and seeing big hits like Barbie (2023) and Oppenheimer (2023), this deal is a catastrophe. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos is not a supporter of what he would call the movie theater experience.
“They definitely would have enjoyed just as big an audience on Netflix,” Sarandos said about the “Barbenheimer” sensation, which is an insane comment to make about two movies that combined to make over $2 billion.
But the importance of movie theaters is not just about the money. It is about the communal and social effect of going to see a movie with other people. Without movie theaters, millions of people across the world would not have dressed up in pink to go see Barbie two summers ago. Nobody would have ironically dressed up in suits to see the Minions (2022) sequel. And we would never have had the sensation of A Minecraft Movie (2025) and the chaos that the “chicken jockey” scene wreaked across theaters. The effect of a movie theater is integral to our society. If the living room couch becomes the only place humans watch movies, we lose a social element that is fundamental and vital to our culture.
Perhaps it’s best put in the words of director Sean Baker, whose film Anora (2024) took home five Oscars last year: “Watching a film in the theater with an audience is an experience,” he said. “We can laugh together. Cry together. Scream in fright together. Perhaps, sit in devastated silence together. And in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home.”
The deal is far from completed, and artists will not go down without a fight. An anonymous group from Hollywood sent a letter to Congress on Dec. 4 in hopes of taking down the deal.
“Netflix views any time spent watching a movie in a theater as time not spent on their platform,” the letter reads. “They have no incentive to support theatrical exhibition, and they have every incentive to kill it.”
This is a merger of two of the biggest Hollywood companies. The merger, by almost all standards, creates a monopoly. You don’t need an advanced degree in economics to know that monopolies are bad. They are bad for actors, bad for lower-wage workers on movie sets, and bad for the consumer. When mergers like this happen, you end up paying more money to watch the movies you want to watch. Your monthly Netflix subscription is going to skyrocket.
CEO of Paramount David Ellison has decided he is not going to quit. On Monday, he announced that Paramount is attempting an all-cash hostile takeover of Warner Bros., appealing directly to the shareholders of the company. Ellison himself has also made the pitch that Netflix acquiring Warner Bros. would be disastrous for movies. President Trump has also tried to help his friend Ellison out, saying that the Netflix deal “could be a problem” and hinting that the government may halt the deal.
Regardless, whoever comes out on top, this is a disaster. Any form of monopoly within the movie industry will only lead to layoffs, fewer movies being made, and more expensive movie tickets. Paramount buying Warner Bros. will have disastrous effects on the news landscape, as CNN will become a news outlet more in the vein of Fox News, and Netflix buying Warner Bros. will be an arrow through the heart of the movie theaters that are so important to American culture.
Movies are awesome. Seeing them with other people is even better. Places like the Apollo Theatre offer an incredible experience that any resident of Oberlin should take advantage of. No matter what decisions the billionaires who run the studios make to help their bottom line, those moving pictures on the big screen will always be important.
