Anything Goes : Netflix Warners by Ben Trebilcook

There has been a lot of noise about Netflix buying Warner Bros: monopoly fears, rising prices and talk of the death of cinema. These concerns are understandable, but the industry did not suddenly unravel this week. When David Zaslav took over Warner Bros Discovery, Hollywood was already protesting. Projects were cancelled, jobs were cut, strikes erupted and the company’s value fell sharply. The foundations were shifting long before Netflix made its move, guided along by the quiet influence of the major asset managers who, as always, hold a meaningful slice of nearly every studio in town. I am a child of the VHS era. The films that shaped me lived on tape, not in cinemas. If tablets had existed, that is where we would have watched them. We never thought less of Van Damme because he was not in the multiplex. Today Arnold is on Netflix, Stallone is on Paramount and many of the biggest stars in the world work primarily on Apple and Amazon. Screens change. Platforms change. Talent adapts. Audiences adapt even faster. And for all the digital outrage being expressed this week, we all know that many artists, new and established, would leap at the chance to work with Netflix if the call came. This is not the death of anything. It is the next evolution. Storytelling survives every shift in format, every technological leap and every corporate restructuring. And I will always wave the flag for film, whatever screen it lands on and whatever quiet hands happen to be steadying the wheel behind the scenes. #filmmaking #netflix #screenwriting #warnerbros #blackrock