Ted Sarandos

This is a business deal, not a political deal.

It's a very important thing to look at, and I think why the DOJ is having those conversations, those are all laid out in the 2023 merger guidelines.

To better understand the landscape, they're going to talk to competitors and suppliers and to better understand the landscape, including how it impacts adjacent businesses like the theatrical business.

Now, our pitch is very simple because it's the truth, which is we're going to keep Warner Brothers running pretty much like they are today, releasing their movies in theaters for the traditional 45-day windows.

And in fact, it's even quite better for theaters because now that we're going to be in that business and own a theatrical distribution entity, we're going to take some of the Netflix films and put them through that as well.

So it's very likely that you'll have even...

more outcome of high quality films for the theaters if this deal goes through.

Now remember Paramount has got this kind of fantasy proposal of somehow they're gonna go from the half a dozen or so movies they distributed last year to 30 movies a year, which is about 10 movies more than the healthy studios are making now.

I don't think that's likely, but what I know is very likely is that we're gonna continue to operate that business largely as it is today.

starting in the theaters, running through traditional windows, hitting HBO Max through the pay TV output deal, the output deals around the world.

That's going to continue, and it's going to be good for the theaters because they're going to have more.

And by the way, I've been talking to them more about creative things that we do together, like we did the Stranger Things finale, which had thousands and thousands of sold-out shows all over the country, or the K-pop Demon Hunters sing-along, which energized the theaters on an otherwise very slow week.

So we're excited about working together with the theaters to make that business healthy again as well.

And I think that what they really need is more good movies, and we're going to provide them for them.

Lucas, let's be clear.

This deal does not represent any concentration risk at all.

So those two would typically be remedies for a situation like that.

According to Nielsen, we have 9% of the business.

We're going to add HBO to that.

We're going to have 10% of the TV business, which is the primary driver of this deal and of our business.