‘Must Be Blocked’: Writers Guild of America Strongly Opposes Netflix-Warner Bros Merger

(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

The estimated 20,000 members of the Writers Guild of America are warning that the proposed deal for Netflix to buy Warner Bros. “must be blocked.”

Netflix announced Thursday that it had won exclusive rights to negotiate a massive $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. — which includes CNN and HBO Max. Netflix officials said the company “plans to maintain Warner Bros.’ current operations, including continuing to release WB films in theaters.”

However, guild members fear “Netflix’s well-known antipathy toward theatrical releases” and its propensity for “putting all of its original movies straight to streaming with only a few exceptions,” Variety reported.

In a statement to Variety on Friday, the guild said, “The world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”

The statement continued:

The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers. Industry workers along with the public are already impacted by only a few powerful companies maintaining tight control over what consumers can watch on television, on streaming, and in theaters. This merger must be blocked.

The WGA has a “consistent track record of opposition to media consolidation,” Variety reported, over fears that such a merger “shrinks the market for writers’ work.”

Other major deals opposed by the WGA included the Comcast-NBCUniversal deal in 2011; the AT&T-Time Warner deal in 2016; the Disney-Fox merger in 2017; the Amazon-MGM merger in 2021; and the Warner Bros.-Discovery merger in 2022.

Variety added that in 2023, the union warned that “Disney, Netflix and Amazon were poised to become the ‘new gatekeepers’ of the industry.”

Other groups speaking out against the merger include the Hollywood division of the Teamsters union, the Producers’ Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, and Cinema United.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “I wouldn’t look at this as a change in approach for Netflix movies or for Warner movies. I think, over time, the windows will evolve to be much more consumer-friendly, to be able to meet the audience where they are quicker.”

Sarandos added, “Our primary goal is to bring first-run movies to our members, because that’s what they’re looking for.”

Read the Variety story here.

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