If you love movies, the merger of Netflix and Warner Bros. is about as bad as the news can get. We’ll start with…
THE DEATH OF QUALITY MOVIES
About 15 years ago, I started giving up on modern movies. Sure, we’d get a handful of great movies each year. What’s dived in quality are those everyday movies, the ones that hit theaters most every weekend. Today, those movies almost all range from forgettable to outright garbage.
Here’s how I back that up…
Movies I enjoy, I own. There’s no agenda in my purchasing decision. If I like it, I buy it — almost always the hard copy, Blu-ray edition.
So far, with only three weeks left of 2025, I only have three titles on my 2025 purchase list: F1: The Movie; Weapons; and Sinners. That’s it, and I’ve pretty much seen everything this year. Maybe Marty Supreme will make the list. I hope so.
That’s one more than my pathetic 2024 purchases (Anora, Touch).
I purchased five in 2023 (Coup de Chance, The Holdovers, Oppenheimer, Perfect Days, John Wick 4, and Iron Claw).
There were only six 2022 purchases (Vengeance, Top Gun: Maverick, Tar, Sisu, Emily the Criminal, and Banshees of Inisherin).
The last truly decent year for movies, 2019, I purchased over 20.
But in 2003, there were 40 purchases; in 2000, there were 51; in 1997, there were 62; in 1993, there were 74 — and 60 to 75 per year is about the average from there on…
This is why movie theaters are dying. The appeal isn’t there anymore, at least not enough appeal to pull the movie business out of its kamikaze run of woke, divisive, preachy, smug, dull, insulting, divisive, off-putting, and sexless (unless it’s gay sex) suicide run. People still want to go to the movies. There’s no question about that. If the movie is appealing enough (Top Gun: Maverick, Barbie, Avatar: Way of the Water, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Zootopia 2, Wicked: For Good, Inside Out 2, etc.), people will come.
Therefore, to save the movie business, Hollywood only had to pull out of that dive and make better movies. But…
If this Netflix-Warner Bros. deal goes through, 2025 will not only look like the golden age of moviegoing, but it will also kill all incentive to improve the quality and appeal of the product.
Sasha Stone explains it perfectly here:
With streaming, there is no free market pressure, no quality control. You don’t have to motivate people to leave their homes. You don’t need big stars to drive box office, and best of all, you can ignore the silent majority that has tuned you out long ago. Hate the trans agenda being shoved down everyone’s throat? Too bad. Your boycotts are a drop in the bucket at Netflix.
It’s the perfect solution to Hollywood’s problem. They can have everything they want — a virtue signaling paradise — and never have to worry about big budgets or low box office ever again.
In other words, streamers have no incentive to create a product so good and so appealing, millions of people leave their homes to go and see it.
Listen, I have Netflix. I’m in that lowest tier with the ads. It’s necessary for my job and my wife enjoys a few of their TV shows. But we all know the overall Netflix menu is a trillion-dollar pile of shit driven by algorithm, audience apathy, and a generation looking for something they can watch while scrolling their phones. So…
If Netflix is allowed to gobble up Warner Bros., it is unlikely movie theaters will survive. First off, there will be fewer products — four major studios, down from five. Netflix says it will continue releasing Warner Bros. titles into theaters, but is already signaling that the window of time between theatrical release and availability at home will shrink. This means Netflix and HBO Max (which is part of the Warner purchase) subscribers will have no incentive to go to the theater. Netflix is the #1 streamer in the world. HBO Max is #3. Why leave your house to go see a movie when you can stream it in a few weeks?
And pretty soon, Netflix will stop Warner theatrical releases altogether. Why? Easy answer…
SUBSCRIPTIONS, SUBSCRIPTIONS, SUBSCRIPTIONS
Netflix is only about one thing: subscriptions. That’s it. That’s all Netflix cares about. That’s all Netflix should care about. You cannot blame Netflix for caring only about subscriptions, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
And here’s the bottom line…
If you are an entertainment company that cares only about subscriptions, why would you release a movie in theaters? The coin of the realm in the subscriber world is exclusive content. The only way to see this show or this movie is by subscribing to this service. Want to see the Knives Out sequels, Stranger Things, or Squid Game? You gotta subscribe, baby.
Warner Bros. will not save us with some contractual clause that demands Netflix continue releasing its movies into theaters. If you think Warner Bros. chairman David Zaslav has some nostalgic desire to keep movie theaters alive to preserve the art, remember that this is a guy who lights movies on fire to enjoy the tax write-off.
Zaslav also understands that the real money is in subscriptions, not box office. As Sasha Stone explained above, Hollywood hates having to sweat the box office by pleasing people they hate. But if you bow down before the almighty algorithm, it doesn’t matter if all your content is shit.
Now, are you ready to have your mind blown?
Netflix currently boasts 301.6 million worldwide subscribers. HBO Max has 128 million worldwide subscribers.
Once the merger happens, Netflix is looking at about 430 million subscribers.
Get this…
Even if Netflix charged only $1 a month, that would still add up to nearly $5.2 billion in revenue per year. But the average customer probably pays closer to $12 per month, so now we’re talking about something closer to $60 billion per year.
No one can compete with that.
THE DEATH OF HARD COPIES
The most troubling news for me is that Netflix will now control the true treasure that is the Warner Bros. catalogue, which includes (among so much more) almost all of the Warner Bros., MGM, and United Artists golden era titles.
You see, something else subscription outlets don’t like is DVD, Blu-ray, 4K… Netflix hardly releases hard copies of anything anymore. Unless you purchase imports off of eBay (that are more often than not bootlegs), there is only one way to watch Stranger Things or Squid Game or Mindhunter. You gotta subscribe, baby.
Remember: You will own nothing and be happy.
Yes, we’re about to enter a world where only four major studios control almost all of our cultural content — what you can see, what you can’t see, what’s considered acceptable, what should be disappeared, and what must be censored.
Without question, the lack of appealing content was already killing the movie theater business. And now, the merger of Netflix and Warner Bros. will be remembered as the silver bullet that kills theaters forever, as well as the end of quality, creative competition, the competition of social and political ideas, and hard copies of our beloved classics.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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