Disaster, catastrophe and nightmare. That's how Hollywood's creative workers describe the fall of the once mighty Warner Bros, as Netflix and Paramount battle to buy the historic studio and tinsel town braces for more upheaval and job losses.
Warner's decline and impending sale – whether it's to Paramount Skydance as a whole, or to Netflix cut up in parts – is being mourned in Hollywood, where a historic production slump has already battered the entertainment industry. The loss of the studio, which has created iconic films ranging from Casablanca and Goodfellas to Batman and Harry Potter, likely means more job cuts and definitely means one less buyer of film and TV projects.
Interviews with dozens of actors, producers and camera crews reveal an industry attempting to weigh the lesser of two evils: control by a tech giant blamed for killing movie theatres (Netflix) or billionaires seen as too cozy with President Trump (Paramount).
David Ellison is a right-wing billionaire Trumper, a camera assistant said of the Paramount Skydance CEO who is the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder and close Trump ally Larry Ellison. Netflix is much more historically inclined to not micromanage production.
If Netflix gets the deal they want, they will buy Warner Bros' crown jewels – the 102-year-old studio, HBO, and its vast archive of films and TV shows – leaving Warners's legacy TV networks, like CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery, for another buyer.
Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance's $108bn hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros includes backing from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and a fund started by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law. It has raised concerns about the possibility of censorship and government overreach.
The Warner Bros deal is the latest in a long line of major shake-ups in Hollywood since the pandemic. Film and TV productions ground to a halt in 2023 during simultaneous actor and writer strikes. Even as the labor strikes ended, the production boom never returned, leading many media companies to close doors or merge.
Amidst these challenges, the one thing people in Hollywood seem to agree on is this story's villain - Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who earned $51.9m last year as Warner Bros lost more than $11bn. His comparisons to the fictional character Gordon Gekko from the film Wall Street highlight many workers' frustrations.
Whether they’re rooting for Paramount or Netflix or another potential buyer, Hollywood workers aim to reinvent themselves amid the shrinking industry, grappling with the growing influence of AI in the entertainment realm.
As the bidding war for Warner Bros continues, the future of this historic studio—and the entire landscape of Hollywood—remains uncertain.
