Ted Sarandos continues to claim that Netflix is here to make money from Warner Bros. Don’t bury the theatrical movie business.
In an interview with The New York Times published Friday, Netflix co-CEO Sarandos reiterated the company’s position that its films will continue to be released in theaters even if a blockbuster deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, which will buy WB’s studios and streaming operations, is completed. And specifically, Netflix said it would set aside 45 days of theatrical release time for Warner Bros. movies.
“Once this transaction closes, we will own an incredible theatrical distribution engine that generates billions of dollars in theatrical revenue, and we don’t want to jeopardize that. We will run that business pretty much as we do now, and we will have a 45-day period,” Sarandos said. “I’ll tell you the hard numbers. If we’re going to be in the theater business, and we are, we’re competitive people. We want to win. We want to win opening weekend. We want to win the box office.”
Sarandos said Netflix executives had “a lot of assumptions” about Warner Bros. The business turned out to be false, such as, “The general economic situation for the theater business is more positive than we have seen and that we modeled ourselves after. The theater business is a healthy and profitable business for them.”
Netflix’s proposed $83 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. TV and movie studios and HBO Max sparked intense industry backlash, given Netflix’s general antipathy toward releasing movies in theaters. For example, theater industry group Cinema United warned Congress last week that the sale of Warner Bros. would result in fewer movies, job losses and theater closures.
Sarandos said he wasn’t surprised by the backlash. “I think there were a lot of loud voices, but not necessarily a lot,” he said. “I think a lot of it was people who, understandably, questioned the intentions of our play because we didn’t say anything about it. More than anything else because of the emotion around it.”
The deal between Netflix and WBD has not been officially finalized. Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, has announced that it is pursuing a hostile takeover bid and will begin a proxy fight to install directors who accept the offer on WBD’s board of directors. Sarandos said of Hollywood’s negative reaction to Netflix’s proposed takeover, “What people want is no deal. But that’s not possible. There are two outcomes to this deal, and we came to an agreement.”
As previously stated, Sarandos insisted that Netflix itself is not anti-theatre. “We weren’t in that business because we didn’t like it. We weren’t in that business because the (streaming) business was doing really well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Netflix has seen an upturn with special event releases of originals in theaters, with Sarandos pointing to the final screening of “Stranger Things 5” on New Year’s Eve and the limited screening of “KPop Demon Hunters.”
“If you give people a reason to leave their homes, they will be happy to leave,” he told the Times.
But the perception that Netflix doesn’t think theater is great business was reinforced by Sarandos’ comments last year that moviegoing was “outdated.” At the Time100 Summit in April 2025, Sarandos jointly called the moviegoing experience an “outdated idea” and said, “If you’re lucky enough to live in Manhattan enough to be able to walk to a multiplex and see a movie, that’s great. Most of the country doesn’t have that.”
In an interview with the Times, Sarandos tried to clarify his point. “Hear that again. I said, ‘It’s outdated for some people.'” So it’s like there’s no movie theater in the town where “Sinners” is supposed to take place. For those people, it’s certainly outdated. You don’t just get in your car and go to the next town to see a movie. But my daughter lives in Manhattan. She can walk to six multiplexes and goes to the theater twice a week. It’s not at all outdated for her. ”
As part of Netflix’s plan to keep Warner Bros. Although the studio is run independently, the company previously said it would continue to release Warner Bros. films in theaters. But Sarandos didn’t allay concerns about the deal, telling analysts that the release window would eventually be scaled back to be “much more consumer-friendly.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Netflix announced the renewal of its multi-year film production deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment. The deal (previously covering the US and several other countries) now extends to the entire world. The new agreement is worth more than $7 billion over multiple years, sources told Variety.
