The Netflix-Warner Bros. deal shook the entertainment industry to its core. Following a nail-biting bidding war, the streamer came out triumphant, officially reaching an agreement to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery for a massive $82.7 billion, with $72 billion of that being in equity. The selling of Warner Bros. was met with a lot of resistance upon being announced, with many perceiving it as contributing to the shrinkage of the entertainment industry.
One of the people unhappy with the merger is former Warner Bros. CEO Jason Kilar. Kilar served as Chief Executive Officer of the company when it was owned by AT&T, from 2020 to 2022. Following the sale announcement, he took to X to reveal he was not a fan of selling WB to Netflix, stating he considered it a very effective way to reduce competition:
"If I was tasked with doing so, I could not think of a more effective way to reduce competition in Hollywood than selling WBD to Netflix."
A user replied to his tweet, stating they disagreed with his take, seemingly stating that Hollywood's real competitors were tech companies, and the industry should stop focusing on competition between legacy companies. Kilar responded, explaining he wasn't talking about legacy, but about having different companies willing to "aggressively" compete with one another:
"When I use the phrase competition in Hollywood, I am referring to having a sufficient number of vibrant and robust entities that can and will aggressively compete against each other to produce and distribute films, series, live events and more for decades to come. I am not focused on the legacy of it all."
Kilar himself was a controversial figure during his time as head of Warner Bros. Having become CEO in the middle of the pandemic, he led Project Popcorn, an initiative to release WB's new movies in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time, otherwise known as day-and-date releases. The initiative is widely considered to have played an important role in acclimating audiences to wait for theatrical releases to arrive on home video rather than go to the theater.
Still, Kilar himself said he stood by his decision. Speaking to The Wrap in 2021, the former CEO stated he was happy with the performance of Project Popcorn, and called Warner Bros. the "lifeline" of theaters:
"At this point, we're absolutely happy with the decision. We were the first one over the wall with this. So, we took a position of leadership. We thought long and hard. We talked to our partners, we obviously thought very carefully about exhibition. We're the only company, for the last year-plus, that has delivered 18 movies. Nobody else has done that, nobody else has come even close, nobody else has come even close. If you take a look at what the exhibitors have been saying, we were their lifeline in their period of greatest need."
Kilar further stated: "When you look at the results for the business, what we were able to do for our talent participants, what we're able to do for audiences and fans, what we're able to do for exhibition, and also for ourselves, we felt very, very good about it."
Prior to the deal closing, Warner Bros. Discovery plans to move forward with the spinning off of its traditional-TV assets, according to Bloomberg. The split is expected to be finalized by mid-2026.