Last Friday, Netflix acquired Warner Brothers Studios along with HBO, for a total of $83 billion. Warner Bros. is the same studio of Looney Tunes, the Harry Potter movies and future series, and most importantly, DC Studios.
This will greatly affect future projects such as the Harry Potter series coming out in 2027 which is speculated to run for ten years and go into more depth and stay loyal to the books. Originally, the series was going to be streaming on HBO Max but now it will most likely be on Netflix unless they make any budget cuts.
What came along with this major acquisition is Netflix also took aboard the debt of both companies as well. Netflix took a loan from Wall Street of roughly $59 billion and Warner Bros. is currently $38 billion in debt. To pay off this debt and the loan they took out, Netflix may start putting the axe down on a couple of projects.
Netflix is known for taking beloved shows or movies off of their platform to make room for newer content. For example, the hit sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” will be leaving soon and best believe I was enraged when they took Dan Harmon’s “Community” off and moved it to Peacock. Because of this, DC fans have been sweating bullets wondering what’s going to happen to James Gunn’s plan for a new DC Cinematic Universe. For those who haven’t kept up with it, James Gunn released the second new DC film, “Superman” over the summer, in alignment with the previously released Creature Commandos in 2024, The Suicide Squad which he also directed in 2020, and the first season of Peacemaker in 2022, which switched from Zack Snyder’s DC universe to the current continuation. The hype and positive reception of “Superman” laid out the groundwork and more was revealed to come around its initial release. Most notably are “Supergirl” and a body horror film “Clayface”, about the Batman villain’s origin, both coming out in 2026.
This has upset many directors and famous Hollywood names, even Christopher Nolan, director of the Dark Knight Trilogy and president of the Director’s Guild of America has scheduled a sit down meeting with members of Netflix’s board to discuss the dangers this course of action poses. Similarly, the Writers Guild of America has spoken against the acquisition too, saying in a post it’s exactly “what antitrust laws were designed to prevent”. However, it’s gone further than some Hollywood clubs saying they don’t like it, President Trump himself has said he will have a hand on whether this deal goes through, and he’s seemingly opposed to it. The president of the United States of America has said he doesn’t approve of this. I don’t like him as a president by any means but if he stops this acquisition from being finalized it would get a lot of the previously opposed public on his side.
To combat Netflix’s 83 billion dollar proposal, Paramount, who previously had interest in Warner Bros., has offered up a $108 billion offer. This was seen as a hostile move but the fact is that Warner Bros. would be a lot safer in the hands of a film company than a streaming mongul that was the equivalent of Blockbuster 20 years ago. And call it hostile if you will, but it’s called show business for a reason.
