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Netflix had already more or less wrapped up the Streaming Wars. With all of Warner Bros. added to its arsenal? “Now, they’re the kings of Hollywood,” as Lesley Goldberg put it.
There’s a long way to go before that’s an inevitability (see: monopoly expert Matt Stoller’s and former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya’s discussion with Richard Rushfield on the matter). Still, if Netflix actually swings this $83 billion deal, the streaming behemoth becomes the Goliath — and the fallout for Hollywood’s working class … well, $2 billion to $3 billion in cost savings has to come from somewhere.
Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey, Sean McNulty and Lesley all gathered Friday morning to break down the repercussions of potentially the most significant piece of show business news this decade. Top-line concerns include:
The thousands of lost jobs that will worsen unemployment in the industry — already at Depression-era levels
Whether movie theaters can survive the “consumer-friendly” windows Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos referenced in a Friday call with investors
Netflix’s potential new arsenal: all-star showrunners (J.J. Abrams, Greg Berlanti and Chuck Lorre, to name a few) and a gaming vertical at last
Downstream effects on linear syndication
The future of the peerless brand HBO
“Everybody is just shell-shocked,” Elaine said of the calls and texts she fielded all day. “The main reaction that I’ve been getting is that people are scared. People are nervous.” And indeed, the Netflix investors call didn’t help matters, with Sarandos evading the questions that matter most to Hollywood.
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“It’s just a town looking for some answers right now and not getting anything,” Sean said. “If you’re going to do theatrical, how many movies a year are you going to do? What are you doing with HBO? You can’t give me a real answer on it…. I’m getting a little worked up about it.
“I feel like I’m embodying the town out there,” Sean continued. And Netflix is “not reading the room.”
