My Favorite Netflix Bros. Conspiracy Theory
Reading the tea leaves on Warners, tinfoil hat optional
Today comes news that Ted Sarandos is in Washington today for a meeting at the White House, yet again. Apparently, the meeting is private and closed to the press.
Which leaves the vacuum of information about the fate of this industry growing even larger.
All anyone is talking about these days, for good reason, is the latest in the contest to take Warner Bros. — pitting two of the most aggressive titans on the stage in an increasingly bitter battle to the death.
As much as we talk about it, however, the ratio of what we know to what we don’t know is totally out of whack.
Basic questions are completely unanswerable.
Questions like: Why do they really want this? Why are they willing to pay so much for it? What are they willing do to get it? (Is there anything they wouldn’t do to get it?) What will they do with it if they win it?
(Unanswerable, that is, if you don’t take their public statements and whispered propaganda these days at face value, as for some reason, most everyone covering this seems all too ready to do.)
I don’t know the answers to these questions either, but I’ve got a lot of theories. So while we’re all sitting here in the dark waiting to hear our future (or lack thereof), let’s think through what might actually be going on.
The Question
My biggest thought exercise lately has been trying to figure out whether Ted really wants this, or if he is just trying to thwart Paramount from becoming a true rival; would he be just as happy if this just wound on in review for years and then got stopped?
Paramount’s motives, rationales and plans are more transparent and straightforward: Do anything to please Trump (watch UFC boss and Trump pal Dana White on CBS Sunday Morning this weekend, his second interview with the network in five months!) and get the studio to achieve the scale to take on Netflix frontally.
It’s not pretty, but you can follow the logic.
Netflix is harder to read.
What is Netflix’s Actual Endgame?
Here are my thoughts on the likelihood of a conspiracy being afoot: