The Warner Bros. ownership sweepstakes appeared to have reached the end of its beginning last night as Bloomberg broke the news that Netflix had entered talks to acquire the legendary studio.
Netflix was one of three bidders. The remaining two companies included telecom company Comcast, owner of NBCUniversal, and Paramount, which was recently acquired by Skydance Media’s David Ellison. Netflix’s offer is exclusive to studios, including HBO Max. As planned, WB’s cable channels, including CNN, TBS, and (the family’s biggest concern) Turner Classic Movies, will still be spun off to different buyers.
Tomorrow’s news, social media posts, and pundits will be preoccupied with dissecting this move that will forever reshape the world of entertainment, but let’s cut to the chase for Beat readers. What does that mean for DC Comics?
The deal itself has many hurdles to overcome, with government concerns about antitrust violations being the biggest hurdle, but the government didn’t seem too worried about Paramount acquiring another studio, especially after the promise of Rush Hour 4 made it more appealing.
Apparently, WB head David Zaslav and company weren’t too swayed by Chris Tucker’s appeal to come out of retirement, but preferred Netflix’s $28 per share offer, which included a $5 billion penalty if the deal didn’t go through.
Honestly, probably just selling it to a company that can throw around $5 billion in like petty cash would give you all the answers as to why they chose Netflix.
Anyway, back to the central question. There’s no question that the (finally!) success of Superman has greatly increased the value of the DC IP library in the halls of Warner Bros. Zaslav gushed about DC Studios and James Gunn/Peter Safran during a recent earnings call. Netflix loves successful movies, so it seems counterintuitive to ax this Boffo relaunch of DC as a movie brand just as it was getting off the ground. I rate them unlikely to eliminate cancer/saffron in the short term.
On the other hand, perhaps the main reason for Netflix to acquire WB is to eliminate a new competitor in the comfort of your home. The philosophical battle over releasing movies outside of home theaters is currently being waged with Rian Johnson’s third Benoît Blanc film, Wake Up Dead Man. After a week in arthouse theaters, it will be available to watch exclusively on Netflix starting today. Filmmakers have been frustrated with Netflix’s lack of theatrical release for some time. Del Toro’s Frankenstein took three full weeks to complete. And God bless Greta Gerwig, who insisted for two weeks that the Chronicles of Narnia reboot be released in theaters.
On the other hand, acquiring Warner Bros., as I hinted just the other day when talking about Stranger Things, would give Netflix something it doesn’t have: an entire glittering library of awe-inspiring and beloved IP. And indeed, DC Comics is a huge section of its library, encrusted with glittering jewels.
Netflix is clearly no stranger to comic book-based content, including The Umbrella Academy, The Sandman, The End of the F****** World, and The Old Guard. Then there was the whole Mirror World business a long time ago, and it wasn’t a big deal. At the time, there were rumors that Netflix would launch its own comic book series, but it ultimately struck a deal with Dark Horse instead, which resulted in a steady stream of primarily Stranger Things comics.
Based on my own observations about the Netflix era, I’d say they’re not that interested in publishing. And DC Comics itself remains a strange little appendix to a larger studio system. When Time Warner kept its name throughout the publishing company, DC always remained a movie studio to avoid being sold. There are complex reasons for this that deserve their own investigation, but I’ll leave that for another time.
DC Comics has also been tossed around like a chew toy left at a dog park in the whole sordid saga of WB’s own acquisition history, from the AT&T disaster to the uncertain days of the Zaslav/Discovery regime. Perhaps one of the things DC was trying to get through all of this was, oddly enough, the massive success of the MCU at Disney. With superheroes sitting at the top of the entertainment world (literally) across the street, whoever owned WB wanted to make sure they could reach the same audience for their superhero universe. With that in mind, while they weren’t able to completely crush DC Comics, some executives did their best to gut the staff and move them to offices that had to be shared with animation.
That being said, I’ve heard that DC Comics is highly regarded within the halls of the Zaslav world these days. Indeed, their appearance at this year’s NYCC showed a great deal of confidence in the sector, from Jim Lee’s fiery anti-AI speech to the huge and impressive mural in their booth to the fact that they even had a booth in the first place.
Either way, this deal will likely take a year to close — if it ever does. Will the James Gunn-starring DC movie reboot still be a winner? Will Lantern be a hit? If they’re still going strong when the deal closes, DC Comics won’t be the first to cut the WB division.
But we live in the age of Netflix. With a market capitalization of $438 billion, they are the biggest players in the entertainment industry, and they are so good at what they do that they wouldn’t change a thing for anyone. The entire movie viewing experience is fighting for its survival, and Netflix continues to focus on its home streaming strategy. Because that’s what they’re supposed to do. How do managing intellectual property, licensing, and even a small manga publishing business fit into that strategy?
The answer lies months or even years away. But it’s definitely fascinating to watch.
My own gut-level feeling? As long as movies, series, and animations based on DC Comics characters are profitable, the idea factory that is DC Comics will have somewhere to do something. However, by the time the dust settles and this deal is finalized, the publishing landscape may have changed incredibly.
There’s a lot to think about – what will happen to HBO Max? What will happen to HBO? Anyone reading this this morning has undoubtedly been exposed to similar essays that attempt to answer these questions. We will keep you updated with news and speculation.
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