Ted Sarandos keeps insisting that Netflix has come to make money from Warner Bros.’ theatrical movie business — not to bury it.
Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, reiterated in an interview with the New York Times published Friday the company’s stance that should it close the megadeal with Warner Bros. Discovery to buy WB’s studios and streaming businesses, it will continue to release the studio’s films theatrically. And, specifically, he said that Netflix would keep a 45-day window for theatrical runs of Warner Bros. movies.
“When this deal closes, we will own a theatrical distribution engine that is phenomenal and produces billions of dollars of theatrical revenue that we don’t want to put at risk. We will run that business largely like it is today, with 45-day windows,” Sarandos said. “I’m giving you a hard number. If we’re going to be in the theatrical business, and we are, we’re competitive people — we want to win. I want to win opening weekend. I want to win box office.”
Sarandos said “a lot of assumptions” that Netflix execs had about Warner Bros.’ business turned out to be false, including that “The general economics of the theatrical business were more positive than we had seen and we had modeled for ourselves. It’s a healthy, profitable business for them.”
Netflix’s proposed $83 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. TV and film studios, along with HBO Max, has generated a fierce industry backlash, given Netflix’s general antipathy toward releasing its movies in theaters. Theater trade group Cinema United, for one, warned Congress last week that the sale of Warner Bros. will result in fewer movies, job losses and theater closures.
About the backlash, Sarandos said he wasn’t surprised. “I think it was a lot of loud voices, but not necessarily a lot of them,” he said. “I think a lot of it was folks who questioned, rightfully so, our intent with theatrical because we hadn’t said anything about it. A lot of it was the emotions around that more than anything else.”
Netflix’s deal with WBD isn’t officially done: David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is waging a hostile takeover bid and has said it will initiate a proxy war to install directors on WBD’s board amenable to its offer. Speaking about Hollywood’s negative reaction to the proposed Netflix acquisition, Sarandos said, “What people would like to see is no deal. But that’s not possible. There are two outcomes of this deal, and we have a signed deal done.”
As he has said previously, Sarandos maintained that Netflix isn’t anti-theater per se. “We weren’t in that business not because we hated it. We weren’t in that business because our [streaming] business was doing so well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Netflix has seen upside from special event releases of its originals in movie theaters, with Sarandos calling out the New Year’s Eve run of the “Stranger Things 5” finale and its limited runs of “KPop Demon Hunters.”
“You give people a reason to leave the house, they will gladly leave the house,” he told the Times.
But the perception that Netflix doesn’t think theatrical is a great business was reinforced by Sarandos’ comments last year that moviegoing was “outmoded.” At the Time100 Summit in April 2025, Sarandos called the communal moviegoing experience “an outmoded idea,” noting, “If you’re fortunate to live enough in Manhattan, and you can walk to a multiplex and see a movie, that’s fantastic. Most of the country cannot.”
In the Times interview, Sarandos tried to clarify what he meant. “You have to listen to that quote again. I said ‘outmoded for some.’ I mean, like the town that ‘Sinners’ is supposed to be set in does not have a movie theater there. For those folks, it’s certainly outmoded. You’re not going to get in the car and go to the next town to go see a movie. But my daughter lives in Manhattan. She could walk to six multiplexes, and she’s in the theaters twice a week. Not outmoded for her at all.”
As part of Netflix’s plan to maintain Warner Bros.’ studio operations independently, the company has previously said it will continue to release Warner Bros. movies in theaters. However, Sarandos didn’t quell concerns about the deal when he told analysts that eventually release windows will shrink to be “much more consumer-friendly.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Netflix announced a renewed multiyear movie output deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment — which is now worldwide (after previously covering the U.S. and some other countries). The new pact is worth more than $7 billion over a multiyear span, sources told Variety.
