Ted Sarandos has truly come full circle in his take on the theatrical window, telling the New York Times that post the streamer’s acquisition of Warner Bros, “We will run that business largely like it is today, with 45-day windows.”
That’s the first time in his recent press tours to correct the narrative that he’s anti-theatrical that he’s put a number on the window length. His comments about theatrical evolved from being about first-run movies being on Netflix first (this was pre-WB talks; post $19M No. 1 success of KPop Demon Hunters) to eventually evolving to public comments that he’s about a traditional window; that he’ll continue to honor the contracts set fourth by whatever WB titles Netflix inherits.
“When this deal closes, we will own a theatrical distribution engine that is phenomenal and produces billions of dollars of theatrical revenue that we don’t want to put at risk,” Sarandos told the NY Times today, “I’m giving you a hard number. If we’re going to be in the theatrical business, and we are, we’re competitive people — we want to win. I want to win opening weekend. I want to win box office.”
Asked about how he opined that the theatrical business was an “outmoded idea”, Sarandos pushed back in the Q&A and said, “You have to listen to that quote again. I said “outmoded for some.” I mean, like the town that “Sinners” is supposed to be set in does not have a movie theater there. For those folks, it’s certainly outmoded. You’re not going to get in the car and go to the next town to go see a movie. But my daughter lives in Manhattan. She could walk to six multiplexes, and she’s in the theaters twice a week. Not outmoded for her at all.”
Sarandos expounded on how he’s seen the light on theatrical, acknowledging that the theatrical business, particularly for Warners, was more positive than “we had modeled for ourselves. It’s a healthy, profitable business for them. We weren’t in that business not because we hated it. We weren’t in that business because our business was doing so well.” Asked how people stay home more post Covid than venture to the cinema, Sarandos responded, “I think we’ve got to take ownership of the idea that when people are excited to go out and see something, they go.”
When asked if he saw President Donald Trump‘s Truth Social post from Sunday which argued that the Netflix deal was awful, and the Paramount offer better, Sarandos said, “I don’t know why he would have done that. No conversation we ever had was about any of the things that were in that article that he posted. I don’t want to overread it, either.”
The Netflix Co-CEO emphasized that Trump is about protecting American production jobs. Sarandos underscored that a Paramount-Warner Bros merger would result in a loss of production jobs “between the $3 billion that they’ve already cut and the $6 billion they’re proposing, those are real jobs.”
In sum, Sarandos said, “We’re going to be the buyer who keeps Warner Bros. running, releasing movies in theaters the way they always have.”