\n<\/p>\n
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts<\/em><\/p>\n If Warner Bros. Discovery was only a movie house, it would have had one of its best years ever. Two of its films (One Battle After Another <\/em>and Sinners<\/em>) are front-runners for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it had a string of critical hits and box-office successes with Superman<\/em>, Weapons<\/em>, and A Minecraft Movie<\/em>. But the company is a media conglomerate that counts HBO and CNN among the brands it owns, and it took on lots of debt; its box-office success in 2025 is not enough to make up for its financial struggles.<\/p>\n This year, the company found itself up for auction. After over a hundred years as a major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. fate seemed unclear. Now months into a process that Netflix formally won, Paramount still hopes to come out on top with a hostile bid. This week even, the billionaire Larry Ellison, whose son, David, controls Paramount, offered a personal guarantee for the deal.<\/p>\n The bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery is a business story that morphed into a future-of-entertainment story and then recently took an ominous turn into politics. President Donald Trump weighed in, saying he would be \u201cinvolved\u201d in deciding who wins, which put every party on alert that Trump might be particularly watching what happens to CNN, a cable network he has called \u201cthe least trusted name in news\u201d and a \u201cpolitical arm of the Democrat Party.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has sued ABC News, CBS News, the BBC, The New York Times<\/em>, and The Wall Street Journal<\/em>. His administration has federally defunded PBS and NPR, and put pressure on networks to cancel late-night shows. In the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war, Trump has hinted that he leans toward Paramount, and this week brought new claims of political interference of the news at the Ellison-run Paramount. 60 Minutes<\/em> pulled a segment on the harsh conditions at a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans earlier this year. Bari Weiss, the new head of CBS News, said the story needed more work even though it had apparently been fact-checked and legally vetted, not to mention promoted on air.<\/p>\n In this episode of Radio Atlantic<\/em>, we talk to the Atlantic<\/em> film critic David Sims about what the outcome of this deal might mean for movie lovers, especially those who hope to keep going to movies in theaters. And we talk to our staff writer Frank Foer about Trump\u2019s increasing influence on the media landscape and his subtle campaign to disappear CNN.<\/p>\n The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Hanna Rosin: <\/strong>I know we\u2019re months from the Oscars, but will you name your top-three picks for Best Picture?<\/p>\n David Sims: <\/strong>In terms of who I think may well win?<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>Mm.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>Or who I want to win?<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>Mm<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>(Laughs<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>I think I\u2019m gonna go with want<\/em>. I think I\u2019m gonna go with want<\/em>. That\u2019s\u2014<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>I\u2019ve got the same pick for both, honestly, is I do think One Battle After Another <\/em>will win out; I would say Sinners <\/em>and Hamnet <\/em>are the other sort of big players right now.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>I was hoping you would say One Battle After Another <\/em>and Sinners<\/em>, only so I could have a smooth transition into the conversation I want to have with you.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>One Battle After Another<\/em> and Sinners<\/em>, two front-runners for the Oscar for Best Picture, both came out of the same studio this year: Warner Bros.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>Those are movies from very established filmmakers with big stars in them.<\/p>\n Leonardo DiCaprio (as Bob Ferguson in One Battle After Another<\/em>): <\/strong>My name is Bob Ferguson. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever heard of me, all right? I was part of French 75.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>But they were for grown-ups. These are R-rated movies.<\/p>\n Michael B. Jordan (as Elijah \u201cSmoke\u201d Moore in Sinners<\/em>): <\/strong>Y\u2019all Klan?<\/p>\n Jack O\u2019Connell (as Remmick in Sinners<\/em>): <\/strong>Sir. We believe in equality and music.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>They were going up against more established franchise stuff, and they dominated the conversation.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>This is Atlantic<\/em> movie critic David Sims.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>They did well in every kind of space.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>It was also the same studio that made Weapons<\/em>, Superman<\/em>, and A Minecraft Movie<\/em>\u2014 critical hits, along with box-office successes\u2014movies for families and movies for families who like Paul Thomas Anderson.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>They had the kind of year studio executives dream of.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>So what better way to end a banner year at Warner Bros. Pictures than by selling it?<\/p>\n This fall, Warner Bros. Discovery\u2014which includes all of its movie studios, HBO, DC Comics, and a bunch of other things\u2014announced that it was on the market.<\/p>\n An initial front-runner was Paramount.<\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>So Paramount was there\u2014it was an existing movie studio, recently bought by David Ellison after he spent years trying to take it over. He\u2019s the son of Larry Ellison. He\u2019s a very, very rich tech billionaire.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>But their bid was rejected. So Paramount kept submitting more bids, and those were all rejected too.<\/p>\n Meanwhile (Netflix sound effect plays<\/em>.) Netflix was also interested and swooped in.<\/p>\n Wolf Blitzer (from CNN):<\/strong> New this morning, Netflix has inked a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to buy the iconic TV and movie studio and its streaming assets, including HBO. We should mention\u2014<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>This is Radio Atlantic<\/em>. I\u2019m Hanna Rosin. The bidding war for Warner Bros. is a business story that\u2019s morphing into an entertainment story and then took an ominous turn into politics.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump: <\/strong>So we\u2019ll have to see what happens.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>Recently, President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter, suggesting that he was personally interested in the outcome\u2014which adds a whole<\/em> new layer of complication.<\/p>\n Trump: <\/strong>And I\u2019ll be involved in that decision too. But they have a very big market share.<\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>Paramount and Netflix have been back and forth these last few weeks, each trying creative moves to outdo the other. On Monday, for example, Larry Ellison offered a personal guarantee for the Paramount deal, which means that one of the richest men in America is on the hook if it fails. That\u2019s the business part.<\/p>\n For those of us who care more about the movies? The truth is that both options might make them a little worse\u2014for different reasons.<\/p>\n And for those of us who care most about democracy? It would not be the first time that the president has inserted himself into the business of media. We\u2019ll talk to staff writer Frank Foer about that later.<\/p>\n But first, critic David Sims on what he pays the most attention to: What does this Warner Bros. Discovery deal mean for the movies when the number of big movie studios just keeps shrinking?<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Obviously, this is a looming nightmare that Hollywood has been worried about for longer than the last few months. And for the last few years, Warner Bros., which is one part of a big conglomeration of TV networks and other stuff has been a company that\u2019s sort of laden with debt and has had some bad corporate owners in the past, that\u2019s been passed around, so a lot of people have been waiting to see who will swoop in to sort of salvage the company or transform it. And the fear\u2019s always been, It\u2019ll get sucked up too. The Hollywood studios will continue to sort of condense into a bigger and bigger blob<\/em>, which, really, it means nothing good for art, unfortunately.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Okay, well, slow that down \u2019cause you said \u201cfear\u201d\u2014you\u2019re separating, already, in your answer quality from financial stability. So it was a studio that made good movies but was financially not stable, I guess, for a while, so why \u201cfear\u201d\u2014why don\u2019t we see this as rescuing Warner Bros.?<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Well, Warner Bros., the movie studio itself, there\u2019s not a huge profit issue there. That\u2019s the sort of jewel of the company, along with HBO, which is part of this corporate consideration.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the other stuff that\u2019s been the problem, and David Zaslav, who\u2019s been running the company for a few years at this point, since it merged with Discovery, has been trying to cut fat. He\u2019s laid people off. He\u2019s canceled whole movies outright. He\u2019s been running it pretty lean, and I think everyone in the industry has been watching and sort of noting that he\u2019s clearly preparing to get acquired.<\/p>\n Now, in the old days, Warner Bros. used to be owned by AT&T. Before then, it was owned by AOL. Back in the day, Coca-Cola used to own one of the movie studios. Big companies would own movie studios \u2019cause it was fun to own a movie studio\u2014you would get to be a player in Hollywood, and you would have glitz and glamour. But now, it feels like the only companies that want these movie studios are other<\/em> movie studios.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> So let me ask you: If, for years and years, big companies have owned movie studios, why is this moment such a big deal? Why do people like you talk about it with trepidation in their voices\u2014nd \u201cpeople like you,\u201d I mean people who love movies and movie theaters and just the whole tradition of Hollywood? Why is this<\/em> any different than Coca-Cola or anybody else?<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Well, so it feels like there\u2019s two outcomes to this Warner Bros. deal, it seems, and both of them are causing agita for different reasons.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>If Paramount, which is another big studio, had bought Warner Bros., you have what happened to Disney and Fox, probably, happening again, so Fox still exists in some form, as a sort of subsidiary of Disney\u2014t releases a few movies a year\u2014but you\u2019ve kind of dried up one of the wells of big movie production in Hollywood. If that happens with Paramount owning Warner Bros., once again, you feel the pool of big movies shrinking in Hollywood. You feel this sort of competition shrinking.<\/p>\n Now, Netflix is this kind of different beast because they operate a different model. They\u2019ve made money a different way. Obviously, they\u2019re all in on streaming. So far, they\u2019ve sort of communicated publicly, like, Oh, no, no, no. Warner Bros. is a different business than ours, and we wouldn\u2019t wanna kill its theatrical industry<\/em>. But because Netflix has been so uniquely aggressive about sort of getting their movies onto TV rather than in theaters, there\u2019s this just huge anxiety amongst people like me and people who make movies that the movie-theater industry just cannot survive losing that many movies a year, if that\u2019s where this is going.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Why are theatrical\u2014this is not obvious to me. It seems to me\u2014what I care about is that good movies get made. Why is theatergoing<\/em> the lifeblood of good movies? Does it change the incentive structure of what kind of movies you make and how good or creative or original they are?<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Possibly. Look, Netflix has made good movies, but there is a sort of style to a lot of Netflix movies\u2014the more sort of generic stuff that they put out: the rom-coms and the sort of medium-size dramas, whatever\u2014that feels like the movie\u2019s a little more designed to be ignored.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Mm.<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Now\u2014<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Ah, now I understand it. (Laughs<\/em>.) That feels like a real concern\u2014if you\u2019re creating movies that you know people are going to be checking their phone while watching.<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> I think when you talk to the sort of older guard in Hollywood, who are especially worried about the mortality of theaters, there\u2019s also just this feeling of, like, When it\u2019s gone, it won\u2019t come back<\/em>.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Sims: <\/strong>And all of those companies are\u2014they\u2019ve been battered by COVID, they were hurt by the strikes, which really reduced the amount of output lately, and they\u2019re kind of hanging on by a thread right now.<\/p>\n Big movies will come out and do well and kind of demonstrate that audiences are fine going to the theater for something they\u2019re interested in. But it\u2019s tougher for a sort of mid-sized or smaller movie to break out in the ways that they used to\u2014which is why, again, one reason that something like Sinners<\/em> or One Battle<\/em>, those films catching on with people is heartening to see because it kind of defies the prediction that companies like Netflix are making of, Ah, well, that old model, that\u2019s sort of dinosaur stuff, and people prefer to just have an a la carte selection at home of whatever they can watch<\/em>.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> So we\u2019ve been discussing the Netflix outcome. Tell me what happened with Paramount and what\u2019s the Paramount outcome. How do you see that differently than what you\u2019ve just described?<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> I think one reason the Netflix bid seems to have won is that Netflix was cool with Warner Bros., the company, sort of splitting up and its cable channels\u2014these sort of less profitable units\u2014getting spun off and turned into a division that can be dealt with elsewhere or sold off or who knows. And Netflix would take control of kind of the big properties: Warner Bros., HBO, things like that.<\/p>\n Paramount seems to want the whole kit and caboodle; they want everything. They\u2019re willing to pay a lot for it. And it\u2019s a little harder to understand why, outside of, I guess, just this notion of, We need to be as big as possible to compete<\/em>.<\/p>\n Paramount on its own used to be a very venerable\u2014it\u2019s still venerable, but now they don\u2019t have a Marvel, and they don\u2019t have the kind of streaming service that Netflix or HBO is. So if they can just kind of grow by acquisition, grow by expanding into new areas of storytelling\u2014they can make more comic-book movies, whatever\u2014that\u2019s their argument for: This is the best way to survive<\/em>.<\/p>\n That might be true for Paramount. It might lead to a lot of layoffs and a lot of consolidation as well. There\u2019s literally just less movies in theaters than there used to be. And so consolidation, you imagine more of that.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Right. So whatever the details, you see this as a lose-lose for Hollywood.<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Oh God, I hate to be so pessimistic. I\u2019m usually not the pessimist, I will say. But it\u2019s tough for me to see either of these being smooth. Both of these will be strange corporate maneuvers.<\/p>\n It currently seems like the Netflix thing will happen. But, obviously, Paramount\u2019s exploring this idea of a hostile bid. Combining Netflix and HBO, you\u2019ve got two of the biggest streaming services\u2014that\u2019s a whole mess that maybe regulators won\u2019t object to. There\u2019s the Trump factor of terms of he maybe prefers a bidder\u2014maybe he doesn\u2019t, though? A lot of the reporting seems to suggest maybe he wasn\u2019t as swayed by the Ellisons as the Ellisons thought he would be. Who knows?<\/p>\n All of this is very difficult to foresee. And I think Warner Bros. did not really see this coming. The old rumor was that they wanted Universal, who\u2019s another studio, to get them, and those two powers would combine into something very, very powerful. This is weird in a new way, and it\u2019s kind of like the story of Hollywood of, every year, there\u2019s sort of a new evolution of weird that everyone in the industry just has to wrestle with.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> David, thank you so much for joining us today.<\/p>\n Sims:<\/strong> Happy to. Anytime.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>After the break, Frank Foer on what happens if Trump does<\/em> intervene on this deal.<\/p>\n And remember: Warner Bros. Discovery isn\u2019t just in the movie business. They also own CNN.<\/p>\n [Break<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosin: <\/strong>The movies are just one part of this Warner Bros. Discovery deal. As we\u2019ll hear from staff writer Frank Foer, politics is another.<\/p>\n According to a recent report from Bloomberg<\/em>, President Donald Trump privately told people that he wanted this deal to be a competition, to have one side bid against the other for his<\/em> approval of the deal.<\/p>\n Frank Foer:<\/strong> Because, ultimately, in order to get a merger of this size through, it needs to be blessed by the U.S. government. And it seems like the biggest condition that he\u2019s laid out there is CNN.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> CNN. Okay, so you think that\u2019s his main interest. What does he want from CNN?<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> So Warner Bros. owns CNN, and I think that he hates CNN, that he says it\u2019s run by corrupt, terrible people, and he wants to see them out. Does that mean that he wants to see CNN kind of left on the side of the road to wither and die? Does it mean that he wants the new buyer to come in and renovate CNN in the same sort of way that the Ellisons have come in to CBS News and installed Bari Weiss and to turn that into a different type of news-gathering organization? It\u2019s unclear. I don\u2019t think Trump knows. I think he\u2019s waiting for the bidders to come and present him with the best prize.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Okay. I think I need to understand how unusual this level of intervention is. What is the president\u2019s usual official role in a big merger like this?<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> So the whole United States government is set up to avoid this type of direct political meddling.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Foer: <\/strong>We have agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, which were set up almost a hundred years ago, or more than a hundred years ago in the case of the FTC. And they were supposed to be independent agencies, where you had a set of commissioners\u2014you would have three from the party in charge, two from the out party\u2014where they would make decisions in a relatively bipartisan, technocratic way, in the best interest of the government, so that you didn\u2019t have presidents coming in and picking winners and losers.<\/p>\n But I think it\u2019s pretty clear that, in the end, he\u2019s got a little bit of a rooting interest for Paramount, but he doesn\u2019t wanna make it seem as if he\u2019s putting his thumb on the scale, because that would be bad\u2014that would send bad signals to the world, bad signals to the market. And so, even if he may gesture in the direction of Paramount, I think even Donald Trump knows that he needs to make it look like an open and fair competition.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Got it. So he\u2019s, basically, somewhat aware of the kinds of criticisms that a person like Frank Foer at The Atlantic<\/em> might make, is, This is inappropriate<\/em>.<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> Right. This is a transaction, and so Warner Bros. has shareholders who have to approve a merger themselves and sign up for a deal; they initially signed up to give their company to Netflix. And really, there is a bidding war going on, and part of the bidding war is that\u2014what Paramount says that it brings to the table is that it can get the approval of the president of the United States; it can make it a much more painless transaction than the Netflix purchase.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> It\u2019s like they\u2019ve already acceded to a world in which the president\u2019s approval or disapproval actually makes a difference in how you do business. It\u2019s like we live in that world now.<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. And Netflix understands that too; that\u2019s why Ted Sarandos went and visited\u2014the CEO of Netflix went and visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office himself. This is the world that we live in.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> So let\u2019s play out the scenario under Trump. What moves has he already made to exert influence over media?<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> Right. So we could look at what\u2019s happened to The Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Foer: <\/strong>During the first Trump term, Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post<\/em>\u2014or he bought it before Trump\u2014but he recreated the paper, essentially, as a resistance paper: Democracy dies in darkness<\/em>.<\/p>\n Jeff Bezos:<\/strong> It is a mistake for any elected official, in my opinion, to attack media and journalists. I believe that\u2014 (Audience claps<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> And Trump sees this happening, and he sees the Super Bowl ad they make.<\/p>\n Tom Hanks (in a Washington Post <\/em>commercial):<\/strong> Knowing helps us decide. Knowing keeps us free. (Music swells<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> And he starts to tweet about how Jeff Bezos is a corrupt guy and that he\u2019s gonna take revenge against Amazon, which he says is doing all sorts of unfair things.<\/p>\n TV anchor (from CNBC):<\/strong> President Trump going after Amazon again, this time in a series of tweets. He writes: \u201cSo many stories about me in the @washingtonpost are Fake News. They are as bad as ratings challenged @CNN.\u201d<\/p>\n Lobbyists for Amazon\u2014<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> So Bezos sees this happening and he, I think, either consciously or subconsciously, decides that he\u2019s gonna walk away from this resistance persona, and he\u2019s gonna recreate the editorial board of The Washington Post<\/em>, which he more directly controls, as being something that\u2019s more politically sympathetic to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n TV anchor (from CNN): <\/strong>\u2014after the publisher announced that the newspaper will not endorse a candidate for president. That\u2019s the first time they have not done so in 36 years of presidential elections. The Post <\/em>itself\u2014<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> Or to take another example, we saw the way in which Brendan Carr, the [chairman] of the FCC, said stations that were carrying Jimmy Kimmel\u2014that because of everything that Jimmy Kimmel had said about Charlie Kirk, that they were gonna pay a price.<\/p>\n Brendan Carr (on The Benny Show<\/em>): <\/strong>\u2014changes that we\u2019ve seen, but, frankly, when you see stuff like this\u2014look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.<\/p>\n Foer: <\/strong>And it turned out that a lot of these companies were in the process of undergoing mergers and consolidations\u2014they had a lot of deals sitting in front of the Trump administration\u2014and so they heard his message, and they said, Okay, we\u2019re pulling Jimmy Kimmel from the air<\/em>.<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Right, although they did say the decision to pull Kimmel wasn\u2019t actually influenced by FCC communication. But, okay, so let\u2019s overlay those dynamics onto the Warner Bros. sale. What does it look like? Play out what it could<\/em> look like.<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> So we\u2019ve talked about CNN, which, I think, is kind of the most vulnerable asset there. I think that\u2014<\/p>\n Rosin:<\/strong> Wait, so what happens to CNN? Just\u2014this is hypothetical.<\/p>\n Foer:<\/strong> Right. So, hypothetically, they could either say that,