Netflix to Buy Warner Brothers? No, Paramount Skydance!

[domino harvey]

Really glad WA sat on all the movies people actually want for over a decade now. I’ll give you one guess what one of the first redundancies cut is going to be

[beamish14]

Really glad WA sat on all the movies people actually want for over a decade now. I’ll give you one guess what one of the first redundancies cut is going to be

Say goodbye to repertory screenings and new celluloid prints, too.

[dwk]

Cliff MacMillan seemed frustrated with Paramount in that YouTube interview he did last week, and was very open about how much he was against this deal. Which makes me think this is also going to be bad for boutiques licensing from ParaBrothers.

[domino harvey]

Disney already showed you the future when they ate Fox and more or less erased the entire studio era legacy of one of the two or three most important studios of the classic era, wiping out nearly all home video releases. They’re just gone. Paramount releases and licenses movies now, sure, but if Disney doesn’t see the money in it I don’t know why anyone thinks it will keep doing so now that they too are a mega studio

[Drucker]

I honestly have no idea what the right path here is.

As a fan of film, I'm dismayed about what this will obviously mean for the lack of resources allocated to library titles, preservation, and of course, home video releases. As someone left leaning politically, it's abhorrent the way people so clearly in the tank for Trump, including his Middle Eastern handlers, will be able to control such major news outlets in the country. It's all a very bad outcome.

But, devil's advocate here, the die is long cast on legacy media, certainly as it pertains to television. And I'm not sure what other outcome there is, long-term, if we're being realistic. The cable and network TV business printed money for years, and that's just not happening any more. The economic model that powered television (syndication, DVD sales) has been permanently upended by streaming services and, crucially, social media/youtube/tiktok. The eyeballs (supply) for TV is dwindling and shrinking every year. Maybe the film industry is recovering more than COVID lows, but that seems like a devil in the details situation (huge blockbusters, children's films, superhero films). There is no more middle. Hell, surprising breakouts

What I'm trying to say is, constituted as they are, with a combination film and TV studio/cable business: what else could the outcome for WBD be?

[domino harvey]

Not sell itself?

[Finch]

One of the concessions was this:

No Forced Breakups: Avoided mandated divestments or sales of core cable/film assets.

I hope this means TCM and WAC are safe.

[Drucker]

Not sell itself?

I wish that was happening. But I think that with assets this valuable in an industry that is declining is unfortunately going to be ripe for acquisition. I mean that's the whole reason the CEO is there.

My perspective is informed by working in this very industry for 15 years. It's just the reality of how these things are discussed within the office. (Sorry to sound so corporate) but if your core assets are declining in edit: capacity (I initially used the word 'value')every year, in a high visibility public company like this, things are going to change. And if the CEO won't enact those changes, he'll be tossed and someone else will be implemented.

[pistolwink]

Somebody better push Newsom on this if he ends up running next year. Unless of course Harris decides to run in which case he said he would not compete with her. Not that it matters, neither of them will be the nominee.

Newsom won’t make it to the final 5 of the Democratic nominees He’ll spend the remainder of his career on Fortune 500 boards and making his own bullshit nonprofits

The pattern with Newsom, for almost everything, is to talk a decent game and then retreat. In some cases he's accidentally spoken the truth (Israel as an apartheid state) and had to walk it back. In other cases it seems he never had the intention of holding the monied to account and was just paying lip service to populist views (AI regulation, this Paramount thing).

I don't think the Democratic primary electorate has the stomach for someone quite as oily as Newsom but I've been unpleasantly surprised before.

[The Narrator Returns]

Right after this he vetoed a bill protecting trans health-care providers from extradition by other states. True scum of the earth, which unfortunately describes a majority of his party right now.

[Lowry_Sam]

In other cases it seems he never had the intention of holding the monied to account and was just paying lip service to populist views (AI regulation, this Paramount thing).

Newsom is in the pockets of both the tech and entertainment industries (and PG & E). If we ever get a Propublica news story on his pay-to-play schemes like we currently are with Susan Collins, remains to be seen. It’s been obvious for a long time that he’s always been a grifter just like the rest of them and that all his pronouncements of caring about one thing or another are just performances for cover.

I don't think the Democratic primary electorate has the stomach for someone quite as oily as Newsom but I've been unpleasantly surprised before.

People said the same about the American people & Trump. Newsom has some of the same traits as Trump, both are narcissists who scam people by their slick speeches & even share some of the same hand gestures (particularly the accordion one). But it’s not about the people, it’s about the oligarchs. If Elon & the Ellisons want to replace Trump with Newsom, they’ll find a way. The American people being as passive as they are will consign themselves to whatever tool the oligarchs tell them is their acceptable candidate.

& with that perhaps we take the Newsom discussion to the politics thread?