Inside the Potential Sale of Warner Bros Discovery [Podcast]

When the most prestigious studio in Hollywood starts shopping itself around, it’s more than a headline, it’s a seismic shift. In this episode, John and Danny unpack Warner Bros.’ looming sale and what today’s era of mega-mergers, Wall Street CEOs, and weakened antitrust means for the people who make movies, and those who love them.

They break down how debt-fueled consolidation backed Warner into this corner, why fewer studios always means fewer films and fewer jobs, and the real consequences of decisions made far from any film set. From worst-case buyers to slim-chance silver linings, nothing is off the table.

But there’s hope. They explore the rise of independent film, audience-driven models, and why communities like Kinolime might be the future. If you care about cinema as an art form, not just as “content”, this is the episode you don’t skip.

Full Transcript: Kinolime Podcast Episode 25: Inside the Potential Sale of Warner Bros Discovery

Participants

• John Schramm - Head of Development, Kinolime

• Danny Murray - Creative Executive, Kinolime

Setting the Stage: Why This Conversation Feels Bleak

John: Especially right now, with our current iteration of the FTC, there really isn’t any antitrust enforcement going into these mergers, right?

Danny: Fair point. There is not a major media sale that doesn’t just lead to fewer real jobs, less competition, or at best, the same amount of competition and a type of economic model around film that is not about “let’s make the best films possible and that’s how we make money.”

John: We’re just talking at work. That’s all this is: we’re talking while being recorded at work. I’m John Schramm, Head of Development here at Kinolime. We’ve got Danny Murray, Creative Executive, one of the finest in the biz.

Danny: Oh my God. What’s up, dude? How you doing?

John: So colorful, thank you. Because of what we’re talking about today, I’m quite sad.

Danny: Okay, yeah, and we’re just getting right into it. I tend not to stick my head into the business side of Hollywood; it’s just something I’m not that interested in. But you always seem to be on the cutting edge. You know what’s going on.

John: As you can tell by my hair and age, I am a savvy financial analyst. I do actually like going over the box office numbers each week, but besides that… I woke up today and saw something about a thousand restructuring jobs from Paramount.

Danny: Paramount, yeah.

John: And then we were just talking about a Warner Bros. sale. So we’re gonna get into, by the way, I know nothing about this, what is going on in Hollywood right now with this sale? Is it Warner Bros.? I know nothing, so educate me.

Why Is Warner Bros. Exploring a Sale?

Danny: The most basic explanation of what is consuming Hollywood finance right now is that Warner Bros. announced they were exploring a sale.

John: I just want to stop you there. Why? Warner Bros., arguably the most prestigious studio around, is selling?

Danny: Yeah. That’s crazy, but essentially, over the last 20 or so years, Warner Bros. has been sold and merged a handful of times, which has saddled the studio with billions of dollars of debt.
Danny: The simple answer is that David Zaslav is looking for a way to pay off that debt and make the company, which a few years ago had something like a $30 share price and earlier this year was down to around $10 a share, more attractive. They’re burning money.

John: Is this the same studio that has been crushing the box office this year? Don’t they have all the number ones?

Danny: Yeah. But because of really horrible mergers that have very little to do with the movie business—and, to be fair, box office numbers that were lackluster before Abdy and De Luca took hold—the studio side had been burning money.
Danny: Now, with their more auteur-driven vision for the studio, things are paying off immensely. But the immense amount of debt that corporate consolidation and these mergers left Warner with has forced them into a sale if their main objective, which Zaslav’s is, is to give what is primarily AT&T (I think they still own about 70% of the shares) a massive return.
Danny: So, par for the course for Wall Street: they’re looking to maximize shareholder value at the expense of the studio.

John: And I guess it’s fair to think of Warner Bros. not just as the moviemaking entity.

Danny: Exactly. Warner Bros. is a name that has many sub-companies underneath it. It’s not only entertainment-adjacent. It’s not just the movie studio “Warner Bros.”, that’s just one part that makes films. There are many other revenue streams.
Danny: There are billions of dollars in real estate. There are theme-park assets. The big issue is: right now, they’re trying to make all their assets lucrative enough so they can spin off the profitable, “sexy” assets for a buyer—streaming, HBO, and the studio, which is killing it.
Danny: They’re trying to spin that off into a separate company and then spin the assets they don’t really want, cable television and the debt, into another company to make the sale more lucrative for a potential buyer.

John: So why do we care? Why should we care?

Danny: We care because, while it’s not exactly the same, it’s similar to when 20th Century Fox got bought. That crippled the entire Hollywood ecosystem.
Danny: There aren’t a lot of major studios, and every time we lose one, Warner being the biggest and brightest, we get fewer movies, we get less competition, and the entire landscape of Hollywood gets worse.

Creative Consequences of Media Consolidation

John: It feels like my dystopian writer brain is thinking: creatively, this is very bleak.
John: When you read the greats, go read Memo from David O. Selznick, you get into the mind of a studio head, a small independent studio head at the time, who loved making movies. They wanted to make films. They cared about profit, but it was really about the art and making the best movies out there.
John: It just seems like we’re not there as much anymore if we’re solely thinking ROI and profitability. Artistically, that’s scary, to think only a few people have the purse strings and the marionette strings. That means we’re going to make average movies that people just see on streaming, and there are no real swings anymore.

Danny: Yeah. I mean, a guy like Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Danny: Is he much of a movie guy? No. He’s a Wall Street guy. At this point, almost all the studios are run by either Wall Street guys or tech speculators.
Danny: But he relishes the idea that he’s an heir to Jack Warner. He sits at Jack Warner’s desk. He bought a house that was previously owned by a major studio figure. He loves the idea that he’s this red-carpet, big movie pioneer.
Danny: However, the way he runs the studio is such that he’s always looking out for the shareholders. As CEO, that makes sense on paper. But if he sells the company, he’s going to get something like a half-billion-dollar payday.
Danny: Essentially, his only real goal right now is to find a way to consolidate and sell the company, which, for someone who masquerades as a legacy movie mogul, kind of destroys that legacy.

Why This Is So Depressing: Jobs, Antitrust, and the End of the “Career Artist”

John: So why does this bum you out? Is it because of the artistic deprivation that could happen going forward? Why are you bummed about it?
John: You also seemed bummed about the Paramount thing a few months ago.

Danny: In general, especially right now with our current iteration of the FTC, there really isn’t any antitrust going into these mergers.
Danny: There is not a major media sale that doesn’t lead to fewer real jobs, less competition, or a model around film that isn’t about making the best films possible to compete.
Danny: What we’re seeing with all these mergers is essentially market-share consolidation: fewer films, fewer options, fewer real jobs.
Danny: And I think people forget that having a “career in the arts” is a very new concept. In the grand scope of art history, you had a patron and an artist. Unless you had a very wealthy patron, you lived on the street.
Danny: There was no world where, especially in an art form that requires so many people, all those people could have great lives just by being great at their craft and working.
Danny: The more consolidation we have, the more vertical integration, the less likely it is that this system continues at the scale we all love and have relied on to be artists.

John: So that’s the doom-and-gloom scenario. What, in your opinion, would be the fix?
John: Obviously we’re not going to stop corporate greed. Their job is to turn a profit, appease shareholders, etc. That’s never going away. What is the fix? Is it more government intervention on sales and mergers? But then that brings government in…

Danny: Well, you want government intervention. That’s the whole point of the FTC, to make sure there is competition. You need antitrust.
Danny: We’ve seen what Hollywood looks like without antitrust a hundred years ago, and it led to laws that stopped monopolization of media companies.
Danny: Honestly, we should have broken up these companies 30 years ago.
Danny: There’s no reason a film studio like Warner should own major news stations, and have the entire media landscape owned top-down by three or four companies. That’s not good.

John: So how is that happening?

Danny: It’s happening because we don’t have lawmakers who take the media landscape more seriously than corporate law.

John: That’s interesting. That’s the part I’m pushing on. My armchair… what is it, armchair quarterback? Tom, is it armchair what?

Tom: Quarterback, yeah.

John: Yeah, armchair quarterback. It just seems like no one is thinking of film, TV, and all that as a real area to concentrate on when breaking up monopolies.
John: Meanwhile, film and TV influence thought, culture, the zeitgeist. Same with news channels and newspapers, which are also owned by the same few entities.
John: So we have an impending sale. Who’s buying what? Tell me what’s going on.

Potential Buyers: Best-Case, Worst-Case, and Everything in Between

Danny: It seems Warner’s plan right now, and to be fair, they’ve done a good job; their stock is almost back up to its all-time high of $30 a share, is to position themselves for a sale.
Danny: The most recent bid we know of is from the Ellisons, who just bought Paramount. They put in a $24-a-share bid.

John: Wait a second. The Ellisons, who currently own Paramount, can buy Warner Bros.?

Danny: Yep, they just acquired Paramount. And unfortunately, the Ellison patriarch is one of the richest people in history.

John: But wait, that’s possible?

Danny: To complete a sale, it has to go through the FTC. In this iteration of the federal government, that means the FTC will basically do what Trump says.
Danny: The FTC chair is effectively under the influence of the administration, so it’s essentially going to be up to Donald Trump to approve the sale.

John: That’s crazy.

Danny: The Ellisons are one option. I’ve got a list of four known potential buyers, and then a fifth: the worst possible option.

John: Let’s go to the worst one.

Danny: Do you actually want to know? To me, there are two. The Ellisons are probably the most likely scenario. They’re saying they’ll commit to keeping the same amount of film production at Warner, but the odds of that actually happening are extremely low. People say anything to get a deal through.
Danny: Their group is currently the highest plausible bidder. The “best” realistic option is that Warner spins off cable and somehow retains the studio as an independent entity. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

John: Give me the worst-case scenario.

Danny: The worst-case scenario is that the Saudis come in with a $200 billion bid backed by Jared Kushner.

John: The Kush? The Kush is involved?

Danny: Jared Kushner is involved in a whole bunch of Saudi business dealings. I truly believe the worst option is that the Saudi Arabian government comes in with an offer that’s so mind-boggling they can’t say no.
Danny: Because Kushner’s attached, and they could also funnel Trump a similar amount of money through his various ventures, it becomes politically attractive too.

John: All right, let’s not go too far down that path.

Danny: Sure, but that’s the reality. The Saudis just put a billion dollars into a studio in Saudi Arabia.

John: And why is that the worst, just quickly?

Danny: Because an authoritarian government that literally uses slave labor would be purchasing the biggest movie studio in America. You’d essentially have the federal government and the Saudi government in control of the world’s premier studio. That is not good.

John: And there’s no oversight that can block that?

Danny: There is: the FTC. But the FTC is not independent in this government, so there’s no real guarantee of blocking it.
Danny: The second-worst option is Netflix.

John: Why Netflix?

Danny: Netflix would buy them just to retain market share. We’d probably see Warner wean off theatrical releases. You’d maybe get three theatrical releases a year.
Danny: They’d mostly be absorbing Warner to eat up a competitor and grow their library. Warner has something like 17% of all major motion picture licensing for Hollywood films ever. Netflix would just be buying that catalog and the brand.

John: What’s the best option? Give me the pie-in-the-sky scenario.

Danny: The best option is they spin off cable, pay down debt, and remain an independent studio. That’s the dream.

John: Which is also the unlikeliest?

Danny: I hope not, but probably.
Danny: The most likely option is that the Ellisons buy Warner. I don’t think Apple’s gonna buy them. Netflix might. Amazon might, they already ate up MGM.
Danny: I could see Bezos rolling in from his yacht with some shiny new bid, just because there aren’t many chances like this to buy a legacy studio.

The Domino Effect: What Happens If Warner Gets Sold?

John: So, last question: let’s say this impending sale happens, to whoever. What is that domino effect like in your opinion throughout the marketplace?

Danny: Fewer buyers. Fewer movies in theaters. And probably more potential sales.
Danny: At that point, how many legacy studios do we really have left? Universal, Paramount just got sold, then what? HBO? Miramax? Skydance?
Danny: You see what I mean? The “best” case is honestly that Warner retains independence. They get sold, stabilize, and then hopefully, in the next decade, the FTC comes in with real antitrust laws, rains hell, and rips these monster behemoths apart.
Danny: That would be awesome. I want an MLB-style Hollywood system where you have like 26 studios and they all want to bury each other. How fun would that be?
Danny: I miss the golden age of Hollywood where they literally wanted to bury the studio down the street. They tried to steal artists from each other. It was all about making the best movie to crush the competition.
Danny: Now we don’t have that. It’s like the modern NBA: “super teams” all wanting to play together. It’s not about the craft or the sport anymore; it’s about ROI.
Danny: And let’s not forget: what’s really sad is that the current film heads at Warner took a massive gamble. An auteur-driven model at the biggest studio in the world, giving money to the world’s best filmmakers and letting them do whatever they want.
Danny: And it worked. No one thought it would, but it did. “Give it to filmmakers who love film” - what a novel idea.
Danny: Anytime there’s a major acquisition and a studio comes under new leadership, there’s a cultural reset. So even though this model is working—this film-lover’s dream model, if Warner loses independence, that’s probably gone.

A Glimmer of Hope: Independent Film and Kinolime’s Role

John: I honestly think Trump should just own them all.

Danny: Great idea.

John: I wanted Tom to zoom in on Danny’s pulsating forehead vein when he gets upset. But seriously, we don’t want to bring only grim news. This is what’s going on. It’s good to educate yourself on where this is headed.
John: I’m really intrigued now. I’m going to research all of this and follow it.

Danny: Yeah. I think the one shining hope for me is that, with all this corporate media consolidation, what it might lead to is a kind of independent film scene boom.
Danny: There’s such a lack of competition between the studios; there are so few films being released that are worth anything, that there could be a groundswell of independent film support.
Danny: We’re not going to get competition from the studios with all these mergers. Maybe we build our own competition, our own distribution and production vessels.
Danny: We’ve already seen a massive increase in interest in independent film.

John: Not to plug the people who pay our salaries and the space we’re in, but that’s exactly why we’re building Kinolime out as audience-driven.
John: Our ambition is to be like a mini-major: a studio that does independent cinema all day, every day. That’s what we’re doing. That’s why we have competitions for you all to vote on, alongside the projects we produce and invest in ourselves.
John: There’s clearly demand for movies. We did a podcast a while ago about why streaming needs films because they drive user retention. People want movies.
John: If the studios are only gonna do X amount per year, especially theatrically, where do you go? Hopefully, Kinolime.

Danny: And all the other companies that might pop up. Then we can have our own MLB of independent cinema.

Dream Scenario: A “Cohen–Guggenheim”-Style Cinephile Takeover

Danny: Speaking of MLB, I just had a thought. I didn’t bring this up, but in terms of potential buyers, there’s something I’m really hoping for.
Danny: I hope that some massively wealthy super-billionaire, or some sort of huge VC firm, comes in as a spoiler buyer. Maybe Guggenheim.

John: Guggenheim, and I’m a huge Mets fan, Cohen, let’s team up. Coast to coast.
Danny: Bring that same mentality from sports: “I don’t care how much money I’m spending; we’re gonna make the best product imaginable.”
Danny: Let’s build a studio that is a great place for creatives, built on the idea that if we have the best product, we win as a studio.
Danny: Guggenheim, Cohen, we know you’re watching. Come on. Write that check. Save us. Save the system. Save cinema, man. Save cinema, please.

John: Danny, thank you for doing all the research on that, because I really did not want to read all those articles. But you’ve educated me and everyone here in the last 15 minutes with your rant, so thank you.

Danny: Of course. I love rambling without stopping.

John: You do. So: stay posted. If you want to change cinema, keep watching and keep supporting Kinolime, because we have another competition coming up soon—so get your screenplays ready. You can help change the system, cinema, and career paths.

Danny: And if you’re a guy with a lot of money and you love cinema… maybe we’ll get bought out one day by Zaslav and we’ll be hypocrites.

John: Yeah, I mean, look, I love the FTC, I love corporate consolidation if I get a payday. So let’s do that, guys.
John: Hit us up. Let us know what you think about what’s going on in Hollywood: if you like it, don’t like it, what you’d do differently. Hit us up on all our media outlets and social platforms. All things Kinolime.
John: But Danny, thanks so much.

Danny: John Schramm. See ya.

John: That was awesome. That was the best sign-off yet.

Danny: Thanks.