Ted Sarandos (Shutterstock image)
Ted Sarandos: Netflix Committed to Warner Bros. Theatrical Window
December 5, 2025
On the heels of Netflix’s landmark agreement to acquire the Warner Bros. Discovery studio and streaming assets, co-CEO Ted Sarandos was quick to mollify concerns about a potential regulatory issue — the impact on the legacy theatrical window that has driven the Hollywood studio business for decades.
“Right now, you should count on everything that is planned on going to the theater through Warner Bros. will continue to go to the theaters,” Sarandos said on the Dec. 5 webcast announcing the $82.7 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets.
“It’s not like we have this opposition to movies going into theaters. My pushback has been mostly in the fact of the long exclusive windows, which we don’t really think are that consumer-friendly,” Sarandos said. “But when we talk about keeping HBO operating, largely as it is, that also includes their output movie deal with Warner Bros., which includes a lifecycle that starts in the movie theater, which we’re going to continue to support.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (CA-R), a longtime supporter of President Trump, last month publicly warned that Netflix’s purchase of Warner Bros. Studios would harm Hollywood because the streamer doesn’t support theatrical windows, among other antitrust issues.
“With more than 300 million global subscribers and a vast content library, Netflix currently wields unequaled market power,” Issa wrote in a letter to to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson and Gail Slater, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s antitrust division. “Adding both HBO Max’s subscribers and Warner Bros.’ premier content rights would further enhance this position, reportedly pushing the combined entity above a 30% share of the streaming market: a threshold traditionally viewed as presumptively problematic under antitrust law.”
The transaction is expected to close after the previously announced separation of WBD’s Global Networks division, Discovery Global, into a new publicly-traded company, which is now expected to be completed in Q3 2026.
Subscribe HERE to the FREE Media Play News Daily Newsletter!