Editor’s Note: In a widely read letter to Mike Lee, the U.S. Senate Chairman on Antritrust, Competitive Policy and Consumer Rights, James Cameron argued that “a sale of Warner Bros Discovery to Netflix would be a disaster for the theatrical motion picture business.” Actor Mark Ruffalo wondered if Cameron should have also spoken against “the monopolization that a Paramount acquisition would create.” It is clear from the way that bidding has escalated that somebody’s going to emerge with the WBD prize. After writing two guest columns about the apocalyptic prospects of the WBD sale and a rallying cry against shrinking theatrical windows, Joseph M. Singer adds the vantage point of one who grew up as a producer of tentpole films, an executive at the studios that make them, and more recently running an M&A company that stakes these pictures.
Jim Cameron’s letter to Sen. Mike Lee reflects a concern shared across filmmakers, middle-class workers, financiers, exhibitors, and many inside the studios themselves. The discussion now underway around the sale of Warner Bros Discovery to either Netflix or Paramount is not simply about one transaction. It is about whether the economic structure that allowed the American film industry to exist at scale continues to function.
I agree with Cameron’s central point. The theatrical business is infrastructure. It is not sentiment, nor is it nostalgia. It is the downstream market that determines whether films are financed at all. I’ve already argued that ownership of Warner Bros. Discovery is inseparable from control of distribution channels. Studios historically survived because they controlled how films moved through theatrical, PVOD, Pay-1, Pay-2, and international licensing. Once distribution control migrates to a company whose core incentives lie outside theatrical exhibition, decision-making shifts away from maximizing long-term film value toward maximizing subscriber retention or corporate consolidation.
That is the real issue before policymakers.
Both Netflix and Paramount raise serious questions as potential acquirers of WBD. There is no requirement — economic, legal, or cultural — that either company purchase the studio. Independence remains a legitimate and, in many respects, safer outcome for the industry.
The conversation cannot be framed as simply choosing between two buyers.
A Netflix acquisition presents obvious tensions with theatrical exhibition. A Paramount acquisition presents different but equally material consolidation risks. Fewer major studios mean fewer films and television shows produced, less competition, less green-light decisions, fewer buyers for filmmakers, reduced pricing competition for talent, and ultimately higher prices for consumers. The result is similar regardless of which corporate banner prevails.
Mark Ruffalo’s question to Cameron, therefore, goes to the heart of the matter: Does concern about monopolization apply only to Netflix, or equally to Paramount? The filmmaking community deserves clarity on that point. If consolidation threatens creative plurality, then consistency requires examining all proposed buyers under the same lens.
Lee raised similar objections. If the fear is diminished theatrical filmmaking, then any transaction that materially concentrates studio power should trigger identical scrutiny.
What has intensified anxiety across the town, however, is the uncertainty surrounding the theatrical window. Ted Sarandos’ refusal to commit to a 45-day theatrical window followed by an exclusive TVOD window (PVOD, EST) creates a dangerous economic ambiguity.
In the current model, a film moves from theatrical to the profitable TVOD (PVOD, EST) window before hitting the exclusive Pay-1 (“streaming”/SVOD) window. By shortening or eliminating TVOD, the time it takes for a film to reach SVOD is cut in half. This destroys the “revenue stack” that studios rely on to recoup costs, making it nearly impossible to greenlight and profit from most theatrical movies.
Last week, during a podcast, Sarandos said he supports a TVOD/PVOD window for films like Superman and Batman. He did not commit to a minimum length or exclusivity. He also separated the event titles from the rest of the slate. This statement does two things: it continues to avoid a true exclusive TVOD window like the one Warner Bros has today, and it creates audience expectations that they could wait for the majority of titles to move to TVOD/PVOD, absent an exclusive period before Pay-1. This fails to mitigate the damage I have discussed.
The shift isn’t just about timing; it’s about the industry’s fundamental arithmetic. When you collapse the exclusive windows that generate premium revenue, the value of a film’s “Pay-1” rights and its long-term library value both decline substantially. This leads to a cycle in which less money is available to finance future films. Without the financial logic of staggered windowing, the economic justification for big theatrical productions disappears, threatening the sustainability of the entire business model.
Ultimately, Sarandos’ ambiguity signals a lack of long-term support for the theatrical experience. When a major industry leader refuses to clarify, these windows will remain as is and exclusive, forcing financiers to price in more risk and causing exhibitors to pull back on reinvestment. While it might be a negotiation tactic for Netflix, it creates a climate of uncertainty in which studios, filmmakers, exhibitors, and investors assume the worst: that the traditional theatrical journey is being intentionally dismantled.
The uncertainty itself becomes destabilizing.
There is a broader structural concern: studios that surrender distribution control eventually surrender creative diversity. When a single platform governs production, release, and consumption, films migrate toward the safest global programming rather than a diversified theatrical slate. History shows that vertical consolidation reduces experimentation long before anyone formally announces fewer movies. We have seen this before: Disney acquired Fox, and we went from six major studios to five. Thousands of direct and indirect jobs were lost, most of Fox’s theatrical output was killed, and fewer films were made. Going from five studios to four will exponentially increase the ramifications and damage.
Warner Bros remains one of the last studios capable of sustaining a wide theatrical slate across genres and budget levels. Changing its ownership changes the competitive landscape for decades.
This is why independence must remain part of the policy discussion. The choice is not binary. Preserving Warner Bros. Discovery as a stand-alone studio better protects competition, employment, and America’s strongest cultural export, rather than another consolidation cycle.
Put simply, a Paramount–WBD merger overnight eliminates a major global buyer, distributor, and creator. In every case, competition shrinks. And when competition shrinks, consumers and creators lose.
There is an uncomfortable truth in this business that rarely gets said out loud: The company that controls distribution ultimately controls the market. Distribution — the ability to reach audiences at scale, on fair and open terms — is the oxygen of this industry. When a single company gains excessive leverage over theatrical booking, cable carriage, or streaming visibility, the system tilts. And once it tilts, it rarely tilts back.
A marketplace where one or two companies control the majority of the pipeline from production to viewer is not a marketplace at all. It is a controlled system. And controlled systems do not foster creativity. They protect incumbents, privilege what is safe, and punish what is new. Distribution becomes a weapon rather than a marketplace. Regulators must treat distribution power with the same seriousness as content ownership, because in modern Hollywood, they are inseparable.
Cameron described himself as a movie farmer. That metaphor holds. Films require long planting cycles, patient capital, and stable soil for distribution. Remove theatrical certainty, fewer major distributors, or compress windows beyond economic viability, and far fewer seeds will get planted.
The consequences appear years later, when fewer films are produced and released. Consumer prices increase. Young filmmakers do not get opportunities, and risk-taking — a central part of our business — is massively eroded.
Cameron’s letter advanced an important warning. The next step is widening the frame: not what company acquires Warner Bros. Discovery, but whether further consolidation — by Netflix, Paramount, or any large media entity — serves the long-term survival of theatrical filmmaking at all.
Many of us believe the answer is no.
One more key point to consider: protecting the theatrical business and preventing an existing large media company from acquiring WBD would preserve tens of thousands of direct and indirect middle-class jobs; it would ensure competition; avoid dramatic increases in consumer prices; and sustain a sector with an estimated $15.3 trade surplus. Additionally, if we start to kill theatrical, over 250,000 jobs, including exhibition (theater chains), could be lost permanently.
English (US) ·