OPINION: New king on the throne

Netflix recently announced they’ve entered the negotiating stages of acquiring Warner Bros. in what will probably be the biggest industry news since Disney purchased 20th Century Fox in 2017.

Right off the bat, I’m hesitant to even point out anything good about this deal. Warner Bros. has consistently been a bit of a wild card in recent years with their movies, which have included “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Mickey 17″ and “Weapons” in this year alone.

So seeing a studio which has somehow managed to skirt around the industry standard of mega-franchises be absorbed into the content machine of Netflix is disappointing.

I’m exaggerating a little bit discussing the artistic merit of Warner Bros., as if they aren’t part of constant intellectual property sponge-squeezing. This is a studio who has been clinging to DC Comics for sustainability. For every “Sinners” there’s “A Minecraft Movie.”

Warner Bros. is a brand, a strange, undefined one, but as a legacy of the film industry, watching this absorption will be witnessing the end of a chapter of film history.

I’m not pessimistic about whether or not this will affect theatrical releases. Netflix seems to be accepting Warner Bros. movies are made for theaters in recent PR responses, but this is possibly the biggest neon warning sign that the movie theater might be losing the grip it once had.

Whether or not you’ve agreed with Netflix’s responsibility in simultaneously improving the accessibility of streaming media while also diminishing the sustainability of theaters, this acquisition is the biggest sign of who’s in the lead.

It’s not like Netflix will stop pursuing creativity; this year alone has seen Netflix acquire a suite of awards season hits (“Jay Kelly,” “Wake Up Dead Man,” “A House of Dynamite,” “Train Dreams” etc.) that show the studio’s willingness to support unique films.

But then again, this is the studio that has used “Stranger Things” like a lifeline. If the marketing campaigns over the last decade for that series is a sign of how Netflix will treat Warner Bros. property, prepare for a lot more advertising.

I’ve said my piece several times about how streaming services have been cannibalizing their own libraries with algorithm-suitable slop, and with another studio being installed for the content mill, that’s not going to change.

For the most recent comparison, Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox reduced the studio for parts and has now sentenced the studio, renamed 20th Century Studios, to produce reboots and sequels to whatever intellectual property test audiences still recognize.

What’s unprecedented about the Netflix-Warner Bros. acquisition is the clash of brands. Fox made it easy for Disney to adapt by wrenching Fox into creating movies with an older-audience focus. Netflix-Warner Bros. isn’t going to be as easy.

Warner Bros. controls HBO, which has possibly the best positive connotation with TV watchers, and one of the reasons why the indecisive naming scheme of HBO Max (formerly Max, formerly HBO Max) has been so silly. Value in a brand like HBO is undeniable; what is Netflix’s value?

There’s a possibility the two studios remain separate as they focus on different audiences, similar to how Disney Plus and Hulu have operated, but there’s no difference in the audience between Netflix or HBO. I assume the hypothetical consumer uses both for the same purpose — watching good movies or TV.

Netflix’s own branding has been a similar success story. Pioneering streaming and becoming a blueprint for how streaming services can produce their own content while still creating pop culture buzz, Netflix has its own general audience appeal.

What’s most likely going to happen is a war for corporate culture, with one eventually dissolving into the other. That, or the two studios exist in sisterhood, which makes the corporate takeover trickier but kickstarts Netflix into, likely, the status of the largest distributor of prestige content.

How will this affect the movies? Netflix adopts the Warner Bros. distribution network, which has the chance of giving Netflix a stronger hold over theaters to distribute their movies, a chance that Netflix hasn’t explored yet.

The biggest theater chains, including AMC, Cinemark and Regal, have all had informal policies preventing Netflix from their theaters, excluding exceptions like the “K-Pop Demon Hunters” sing-a-long from this year. With Warner Bros., that can change.

Theater company stocks aren’t liking the acquisition, with AMC and Cinemark notably lowering in value since the deal became more official. The exclusivity window that theaters have enjoyed (which has shrunk from six months, to 90 days to 45 and sometimes less) would undoubtedly be destroyed if Netflix held the keys to the movie industry.

Is the theater going to die? This is going to be the biggest test of resolve the movies will ever experience. In a world where ease of access has triumphed, maybe movie theaters are going to die.

As Netflix slowly absorbs Warner Bros. over the next year, we’ll just have to wait and see. Expect those monthly prices to rise.