Hollywood's Uncertainty: Warner Bros Sale Triggers Industry Turmoil

Sun Dec 14 2025 18:09:49 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

The impending sale of Warner Bros is causing a rift in Hollywood as creatives face an uncertain future. A clash between tech giant Netflix and billionaire-backed Paramount Skydance raises concerns about the industry's direction.

As Warner Bros prepares to be sold either in whole or in parts, Hollywood braces for a potential wave of job losses and creative upheaval. Industry insiders express their fears about the future, weighing the implications of a Netflix acquisition against a Paramount Skydance bid, both viewed through the lens of shifting power dynamics and the lingering impacts of recent labor strikes.

Disaster, catastrophe and nightmare. That's how Hollywood's creative workers describe the fall of the once mighty Warner Bros, as Netflix and Paramount battle to buy the historic studio and tinsel town braces for more upheaval and job losses.

Warner's decline and impending sale – whether it's to Paramount Skydance as a whole, or to Netflix cut up in parts – is being mourned in Hollywood, where a historic production slump has already battered the entertainment industry. The loss of the studio, which has created iconic films ranging from Casablanca and Goodfellas to Batman and Harry Potter, likely means more job cuts and definitely means one less buyer of film and TV projects.

Interviews with dozens of actors, producers and camera crews reveal an industry attempting to weigh the lesser of two evils: control by a tech giant blamed for killing movie theatres (Netflix) or billionaires seen as too cosy with President Trump (Paramount).

David Ellison is a right-wing billionaire Trumper, a camera assistant said of the Paramount Skydance CEO who is the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder and close Trump ally Larry Ellison. Netflix is much more historically inclined to not micromanage production.

If Netflix gets the deal they want, they will buy Warner Bros' crown jewels – the 102-year-old studio, HBO, and its vast archive of films and TV shows – leaving Warners's legacy TV networks, like CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery, for another buyer.

Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance's $108bn hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros includes backing from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and a fund started by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, raising concerns about the possibility of censorship and government overreach.

The Warner Bros deal is the latest in a line of major shake-ups in Hollywood since the pandemic, with many media companies forced to close doors or merge.

Whether they're rooting for Paramount or Netflix or another potential buyer, Hollywood agrees on this story’s villain - Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who earned $51.9m last year while the company lost over $11bn.

Many in Hollywood want to believe Netflix will maintain current operations and theatrical releases, yet concern lingers about the future of cinema as a platform with more prior transactions favoring streaming over traditional releases.

Ultimately, the uncertainty leaves many creative workers to ponder how they can survive in a changing industry landscape.