Netflix x Warner Bros.: Is This the End?
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The biggest news in the Entertainment industry might signal the end of it. After a month of bids to acquire Warner Bros. came from the likes of Paramount and Comcast, it was Netflix that was victorious. In a press release from Netflix on December 5th, Netflix announced that it'd acquire Warner Bros. following the separation of Discovery Global for a *total enterprise value of $82.7 billion. I'm not about to explain in terms of stock options, but from my standpoint, it sounds like a totally made-up number.
All we really need to know is that Netflix has promised billions of dollars for "Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix’s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide." The press release goes on about the other extraordinary IP under Warner Bros. and how Netflix can't wait to add it to its catalog. That all sounds lovely, nothing ever bad happened when a company swallowed another one up. At least we'll be able to watch The Big Bang Theory, Wednesday, and Casablanca on the same streaming service.
The press release continues to offer a lot of vague promises and attempts to detail how consumers will see this as a winning merger. There are a lot of words in that document. There's one interesting word that only shows up one time in the almost 3,000 words: Theatrical.