The Warner Bros/HBO Battle & What It Means For The Future Of Australian Cinema

In this op-ed, executive chair of Meerkat Media Lee Stephens breaks down the ins and outs of the Warner Bros and Netflix proposed buyout, Paramount’s hostile retaliation bid and how all of this will impact both Australian media but also Australian cinema.

A seismic shift is underway in the US movie and streaming entertainment industry that will ultimately impact Australian cinema audiences. The future of local cinema attendance and advertising revenues will be influenced by Hollywood restructuring in the next five years.

In true Hollywood style, the sale of Warner Bros/HBO to a suitor is playing out like a cinematic thriller. The actors include the world’s largest subscription streaming platform, a movie studio mogul who is the son of the world’s third richest man, and very real concerns about the future of cinema from Hollywood icons.

Sizing up against each other are Netflix and Paramount. If Netflix wins, the global streaming and subscription market will have an unassailable victor with the ability to turbocharge movie and content production. Paramount needs to win and has deep pockets and powerful friends, but not the support of the Warner/HBO board. In the end, however, it’s the shareholders that decide, not the board.

Regardless of the intrigue, the outcome will shape the future of global cinematic releases and the balance between quality movies developed for cinema and those designed to satisfy the insatiable content appetite of more than one billion streaming accounts globally.