Jasimo’s Blog

DISCLAIMER: I do not subscribe to Netflix.

** An update to this article concludes below. **

It is crazy enough for me to write a post in reaction to companies gobbling up other companies. This one coming out of Hollywood is already receiving a lot of flack.

Just recently, Netflix won the rights to merge with Warner Bros., the iconic century-old stud (studio, rather…) that’s been home to Looney Tunes, Superman, Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, Police Academy, the vast majority of Clint Eastwood’s filmography, and more recently, Barbie and Minecraft. The official price tag is $82.7 billion — that doesn’t include Discovery’s cable TV operations, so it’s a matter of time as to when another big whale of a tech company will swallow it whole for dinner.

Something is very amiss about this buyout, which will have to jump over political hurdles in Washington on a 12-18 month timeframe before it all goes ka-ching or ka-blooey. You see, Netflix is all about quantity of ‘content’ being produced at warp speed at an assembly line and served on a conveyor belt with some (if not all) disregard to quality. That’s what streamers are for, actually. They want you to get hooked on coke by consuming its catalogue full of binge-able dramas and documentaries provided to you for a monthly subscription cost. (** Caution: price hike ahead! **) Acquiring the WB would one-up its market share to near 50% penetration and spark antitrust scrutiny. 

Netflix insists — or rather, promises — that nothing will be changing when it buys out the WB. I recall many years ago when a local bank was bought out and merged with another one, but the bank branch near my house wasn’t going to close or have a name change. So, they plastered billboard ads all over the city with the bank’s signage and the words “Here To Stay” over a plain white background. “Nothing Lasts Forever” is a more accurate slogan — the bank eventually did get a different name and the bank wasn’t the same ever again. That fickle approach is likely to apply to the new business model of ‘Warnerflix’ — just not the same old innocent company you think it will be years from now.

Nowhere in the news is telling you about the potential devastation it will have on physical media, a category of which Warner itself had been leading the way up until boutique labels Arrow, Criterion and Shout Factory started distributing its product. Let’s not leave out the heritage-worthy Warner Archive catalogue — I give it two thumbs up for putting out legacy product that resonated with that down-to-earth moviegoing experience that was appreciated by so many. It’s easy enough to proclaim that streaming supplanted movie discs because of convenience and you can thank Netflix for bucking the trend nearly two decades ago. Ironically, Netflix doesn’t have vested interests in movie discs, a medium that put it on the map as a DVD rent-by-mail business ever since 1997.

Movie theaters post-pandemic had been beaten badly in continuation by streaming as well, and putting Netflix on a front row seat will only make the pain worse. They expect to see shorter theatrical windows for certain Warner Bros. releases before migrating to Netflix, the soon-to-be permanent home for all things WB. At the present moment, details are uncertain about how all of this gets sorted out. If this is the way to go, then I hope Netflix gives future releases the ‘major once in a lifetime event’ treatment by offering exclusive bonus material that would convince moviegoers to get off their smartphones and come back to the theater, albeit more money spent.

What we might or will be losing in this newly forged Netflix / WB alliance is a sense of spirit. It is starting to sound like a case of ‘been there, done that, now what?’. It’ll have to appease a new generation of people who could have a lack of understanding about cinema’s importance as a cultural art form. Not really about the visual effects, but the actors, writers, musicians and directors deserved to be spirited artists in their own time-tested respect. In this era of social media watercooler hype, we get Squid Game and Stranger Things, and while successful, they’re all drivers of trend and buzz more than artistic value. And for every one Kpop Demon Hunters, there will be 20-30 stinkers to choose from. Add to that a smorgasbord of original series that get cancelled after eight episodes only to be left to languish. And the more slop movies and shows being pumped out every month with little interest by viewers, the bigger the digital landfill becomes. Really, my friends, it’s a terrible waste of resources, but then again, network TV has historically run through a lot of series cancellations for taking gambles at winning high ratings numbers. Here, we’re talking about subscriber numbers and that means constantly feeding the monster with… CONTENT!

The public wants what it wants and that is convenient content. Think about it. ‘Content’ is a derogotory and generic term that describes movies and original series being put out by anyone that hosts and distributes movies and original series — the same goes for YouTube’s infinite pileload of content creator channels as well. Because if Netflix keeps doing what it’s doing by churning out flops and slops one by one, and there’s a high chance they will thanks to A.I. replacing human labor, they’ll desecrate the time-honored legacy of the WB that was built upon its foundation for the last 102 years.

Will Netflix preserve the greatness that made Warner Bros. a living legend? Or will they smash it to smithereens by turning it into a minor entity? Just look at Disney and Amazon — they bought out (formerly) 20th Century-Fox and MGM, respectively. Now they are doing their darndest to go woke and ruin IPs like James Bond 007. No wonder why smaller and more prestige players like A24 and Neon are thriving with a new generation of real talents who can actually write a script, even when they’re not ready to surrender to a buyout just yet. 

If you are really serious about valuing content, may I recommend starting a physical media library while staying away from all the hype about streaming. I regretted selling it away when streaming arrived, and I’ve learned my lesson well. If you already have a big library of these silver platters, hold on to it — that’s your life insurance right there. Yes, it will cost a fortune, but then you will maintain unprecedented power and control in your own hands. Appreciate… don’t depreciate — that’s the whole trouble with digital streaming services today. They depreciate content just by slogging it around, all the while tampering with it.

It remains to be seen if Netflix will ever get a firm handle on Warner Bros. and we won’t officially know until the transaction is complete by early 2027 at the latest. On a consumer relations standpoint, methinks this is going to be, as James Cameron aptly calls it, a disaster. 

So just in case you need a little hope and inspiration…

UPDATE 12/8 – It appears that Paramount Skydance launched a  counteroffensive on Netflix with a hostile takeover bid of $108.4 billion in the insinuating battle for control of Warner Bros. Discovery and now the whole situation has turned into a bare-knuckle street fight. I have a hunch that Netflix already made a done deal because of its decade-long commitment to global streaming infrastructure needed to reach audiences hungry for ‘content’. Generally speaking, I’ve been in favor of Paramount to win the entire sale — along with CBS and existing assets, they could run both the WB film studio and linear TV business altogether and start a whole new renaissance in the way our entertainment is being distributed. No matter the outcome, this new consolidation of Big Digital Media is just like Big Cable TV of the 1990s — with more choice comes higher subscription prices passed on to the consumer, and that’s the bad part.