After weeks of appearing as if Warner Bros. bosses… Discovery were engaged in corporate housekeeping — as if the studio were in a courtship situation with two wealthy suitors and couldn’t decide which ones they wanted to leave their company with — and Netflix suddenly called things off late Thursday, setting the stage for a massive new inter-corporate wedding (and if there was a real wedding, with all the affected employees invited as guests, everyone would be drinking heavily).
Here’s your updated version of Who Won and Lost the Week: The Great Netflix Pull-Out Edition – plus some Tyra Banks, Shia LaBeouf and bloody BAFTA awards gore.
beat: Paramount Skydance. Pending approvals, the company won its uphill, months-long battle to acquire Warner Bros. Pictures. Discovery, which will include originals such as WarnerBros. Pictures, HBO and CNN are under the control of pro-Trump David Ellison (I guess JK Rowling doesn’t need to worry about HBO’s) Harry Potter series featuring, say, transgender Luna Lovegood, while Anderson Cooper runs out of news organizations to apparently leave in protest). It also means Paramount takes on nearly $60 billion in debt, a way to make money that only the wealthy are comfortable with. Paramount’s overtake of Netflix is supposed to be the best option to help prop up the movie industry, as Paramount invests in major event films, and few have bought into Netflix’s pledges to protect the traditional business model it has tried to undermine for decades. But it’s the lowest-quality option for those who worry that Ellison’s political ideology is infecting more news and entertainment brands.
beat: David Zaslav. It is indisputable: the WBD president played his cards right. Paramount’s first offer was $19 per share. Paramount’s winning bid was $31 (plus a $1 billion incentive package). The man personally stands to make over $600 million. Unfortunately for everyone who works under him, Paramount is reportedly planning $6 billion in cuts, which will mean massive layoffs. Zaslav won, but he may have to sell his $16 million Los Angeles mansion because of all those torches and pitchforks at his gate.
lost: Netflix. This feels good. It’s not because we’re anti-Netflix. Netflix is the first streaming program I open when I want to watch a show or movie that’s super entertaining but not great (and when I want a plot explained to me repeatedly because I’m on my phone). But Netflix is the most successful streaming company, has incredibly deep pockets, and, frankly, shouldn’t get everything it wants all the time. President Ted Sarandos may have had a strategic need for the project.”naturally “We will beat back Paramount’s arrogance” throughout the merger bargain (complete with the above now-meme of early victory). But Netflix still looks like a company that hasn’t heard the word “no” since when it was stuffing DVDs into red envelopes. So there was something satisfying about forcing Netflix to take its algorithmic games and go home, even if it was also a move that boosted its stock price and earned it a $2.8 billion breakup fee. (Yes, this is a world where you can make $2.8 billion to someone who rejects your offer.) Of course, you could say the same about Ellison if he doesn’t get his way even once.
lost: CNN: a news network that has been in a downward spiral for a long time, long It’s time for more bad news, with the possibility that Barry Weiss – or someone ideologically similar to him – will seize control of the ‘most trusted name in news’. While the prospect of anyone sticking their political thumb across any news organization is pretty bad, let’s add some context here: In our increasingly fractured media landscape, when Joe Rogan has nearly 12 million listeners, the fate of the Republic does not hinge on the precise level of political fabrication fed to CNN’s 600,000 viewers each night. (Eric Gardner tweeted a great idea: If Sarandos wants revenge, he should take a small percentage of that breakup fee and use it to create a competitor to CNN.)
Won: James Cameron. While everyone had their fingers in the wind and didn’t want to ruffle feathers in the merger battle between two powerful studios, Cameron came out swinging hard against Netflix in its bid to acquire WBD. Not just through a press release, but by sending a letter to Senator Mike Lee, Chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. Sure, Mark Ruffalo criticized Cameron for his letter, but Ruffalo was protesting over a sandwich (also, the actor missed the point — Cameron wasn’t saying “I like studio mergers,” he was defending what he saw as the lesser of two evils for Hollywood jobs and protecting movie theaters since mergers were inevitable, one way or another). Likewise, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos attacked Cameron, but Sarandos would still gleefully kill to get one new Cameron movie over a hundred. Red Noticesand Rebellious moonQ. Once again: Never bet against James Cameron.
Won: George R.R. Martin/game of thrones-Verse: Well, I might be a little biased about this. but Knight of the Seven Kingdoms The series received high ratings for its first season finale, with some of the franchise’s highest-rated episodes on IMDB, and proved that HBO could deliver a short, inexpensive series. He owns spin-off and gain a surprising amount of love from the fanbase. while Dragon House — which fans have been piling on for its disappointing second season — have released a trailer for Season 3 that looks action-packed and action-packed (but could the show’s dialogue scenes in next season be exciting, too?). While the saga’s author, George R.R. Martin – who HBO is starting to realize might be worth listening to now that he’s made them billions across three successful TV shows – will open a play, Game of Thrones: The Mad Kingat the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Theater. As for the franchise, HBO never seemed entirely convinced that it was a franchise, but it finally seems that way now, 15 years after its release. game of thrones.
lost: Baftas/BBC: There was nothing funny about the controversy that erupted at the awards show earlier this week. Except perhaps for this: the BAFTAs’ efforts to be as inclusive as possible resulted in something even more insulting to all involved. Ranking bad decisions from least to most bad: The producers’ awful “if you’re offended” non-apology said by poor host Alan Cumming during the telecast; The complete lack of apology from showrunner Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo – until there was a huge uproar the next day, making the belated Bafta statement seem meaningless; And finally: the BBC decided not to delete the repeatedly shouted n-word from the telecast, which was delayed by two hours, even though Warner Bros. I urged them to do so. Trainwrecks happen all the time in live shows, but they were rarely easy to predict in advance, and BAFTA and the BBC should have been better prepared.
Missing: Tyra Banks: Do you know who was supporting you Tyra? Unfortunately no one this week. One can argue about whether America’s top model It was truly Netflix’s culture war crime Reality check The documentary made it so. But now it seems fair to assume that participating in documentaries that look to “revisit the legacy” of anything you’ve been involved with is probably a bad idea. It’s also a very bad sign when the only celebrity who publicly defends you, Adrienne Curry, hedges her comments by calling you an “idiot” and an “idiot” and concludes by telling you to “f*ck off.”
Missing: Shia LaBeouf: We should not say that people with addiction problems have “lost.” But whether it’s Shia LaBeouf, or someone like the late Matthew Perry – someone famous and… He was rich and was open about his issues and then kept slipping… everyone silently thinking the same thing: You have all the resources in the world — and all the potential love and support in the world — not to be a fool. But it was there transformers The actor, with tattoos and a pirate beard, acts like the obnoxious guy at the bar who ruins everyone’s night, gets into a fight, and then continues partying the next day after his high-profile arrest. The judge told him, somewhat dramatically understating, “You clearly don’t take your alcohol problems seriously.” It is journalistic tradition, when referring to an actor for the second time in a news story, to use the actors’ most famous names (as noted above). Shea: Don’t you want to eventually make a great, popular film that replaces “transformers Actor” in these stories?
