Netflix has committed to ensuring Warner Bros. movies have a 45-day exclusivity window in cinemas before they’ll be offered to subscribers via the streaming platform.
As the battle to take control of the vast Warner Bros. Discovery empire continues to rage, Netflix boss Ted Sarandos is on a PR tour addressing one of the greatest and gravest concerns about WB ending up in Netflix hands.
Speaking to the New York Times, Sarandos rebuffed previous report suggesting Netflix planned to offer only 17 days of exclusivity to the theatres, a possibility that mortified industry trade groups. Thankfully, Sarandos is for now promising it’ll be business as usual for WB movies that include the DC and Harry Potter universes.
“We will run that business largely like it is today, with 45-day windows,” he said in the interview. “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Sarandos, the Netflix co-chief exec, also showed a measure of contrition for his comments calling moviegoing “outdated”, a statement that also alarmed those seeking to protect the institution from extinction.
He added: “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.”
Whether the comments are enough to win enough support among WBD shareholders to seal the $82.7 billion deal, in the face of a hostile rival bid from Paramount, remains to be seen. Netflix is reportedly planning to switch that offer to cash in order to head off the threat too.
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