Another Wedding in Hollywood… But Is It the One We Were Rooting For?!

by Purpose Foundation

Are you team popcorn-and-big-screen, or more of a blanket-on-the-couch, streaming-at-home kind of person? Despite all the “cinema is dead” headlines, movie theaters are alive and well. Box offices are booming, and the magic of the big screen still draws crowds for long-awaited releases. Highly rated at the moment: Paul Thomas Anderson's “One Battle After Another,” which hit theaters in September and is considered a strong Oscar contender.

The movie, like many, was produced and distributed by one of the biggest, most traditional and well-known film studios since the early days of cinema: Warner Bros. More than any studio, Warner Bros. symbolizes the magic of Old Hollywood and, through its ownership of HBO and HBO Max, the gold standard of modern prestige television. Legends like Bette Davis and James Dean defined generations, while its century-old catalog reads like a cultural memory bank: Casablanca, The Shining, Goodfellas, The Matrix. Today, HBO series like Game of Thrones, Succession, and The Last of Us continue that legacy, shaping today’s cultural conversations. Now, this legacy may soon change hands.

On December 5th, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a definitive agreement: Netflix intends to acquire Warner Bros. – including its film and television studios, HBO and HBO Max, one of its main competitors – for a whooping $82.7 billion after Warner’s cable networks like CNN and TNT are spun off into a separate company (1). At first glance, the idea of merging Old Hollywood with the world’s most powerful streaming platform might sound like a high-stakes love story. But as we’ve learned from countless Hollywood scripts: love isn’t always what it seems and this is certainly not a wedding of equals – it’s a takeover.

If Netflix isn't outcompeted by media giant Paramount Pictures and if the deal is approved by antitrust authorities, Netflix would gain control of one of the most valuable cultural archives in entertainment, including the rights to the Harry Potter and Batman franchise. The announcement not only ‘sent shock waves through Hollywood,’ as The New York Times put it, but was heavily criticized by the entertainment industry, film lovers, and advocates of quality television and cinema alike.

And while there are many ways to examine this deal, as done by countless outlets before, this article sets out to do two things: First, unpack what’s been happening around the planned acquisition, and second, explore it through a lens that’s often overlooked in public discourse: the logic of corporate ownership.

Act I: What all the fuss is about

Mergers and acquisitions in media (or any other industry) aren’t new. But few deals carry this much (symbolic) weight, money, market impact, emotional charge and structural consequence. So, what exactly is going on here? And why is everybody so concerned?

A tech company in the entertainment business

Well, let’s start with the nature of the acquirer. Netflix isn’t just any company. It’s arguably a tech platform first, a streaming service second, and an entertainment company ... maybe third? With around 300 million subscribers, Netflix is already the world’s largest paid streaming service. But Netflix didn’t just bring great movies and shows into homes around the globe, it also changed the way we watch and how stories are being told. Long gone are the days of impatiently waiting a week for the next episode. Netflix popularized binge-watching and shaped algorithms-based storytelling: storylines are becoming tighter, pacing faster, and episodes are engineered to keep us watching, often for hours at a time. That's no surprise, is it? After all, Netflix is a tech company whose decisions about what gets made are driven by data: what people click, how long they watch, when they pause or stop. 

The issue of market power

Now, with the planned acquisition of Warner Bros., Netflix would acquire the streaming platforms HBO and HBO Max, one of its main competitors. Add HBO Max’s nearly 130 million subscribers to Netflix’s 300 million, and you get a company that controls at least 30% of the U.S. subscription streaming marketplace (2). And make no mistake: a market share this large doesn’t just mean more reach, it means more power. When a single company becomes as dominant as Netflix would become, competition inevitably suffers, and so do we as consumers (more on that later). Unsurprisingly, the deal has caught the eye of antitrust authorities, especially in the United States, and it remains highly questionable whether the deal gets approved after all.

Secondly, Netflix wouldn’t just expand its digital presence, it would significantly grow its overall power in the media industry. Unlike traditional studios, Netflix is largely independent of cinema chains, networks, or third-party distributors, which leaves it already in a powerful market position. Now, with Warner Bros., Netflix would also acquire a fully-fledged film studio with one of the most influential theatrical production arms in the world. With this acquisition, the company would gain even greater leverage over the entertainment industry. And it would place the company – that has long been skeptical of the theatrical business – among the “Big Five” and with it in a new role: producing content for other outlets after years of focusing solely on its own platform and at-home viewing. That’s why, in Hollywood, many warn of a potential “death of cinema”, arguing that Netflix has 'no incentive to support the theatrical exhibition, and every incentive to kill it.' (3) While Netflix has stated that it intends to 'maintain Warner Bros. current operations and build on its strengths, including theatrical releases for films' (4), not everyone is convinced. And indeed, promises like these are nothing new in major acquisition deals, but whether they hold is another question entirely. 

The political dimension of it all

The power Netflix stands to gain through the acquisition of Warner Bros. hasn’t gone unnoticed and has drawn a “surprising” figure onto the stage. Drumroll, please: U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump publicly questioned the deal, calling it a potential  'problem' for regulators and that he’d be 'personally involved '. A surprising remark, given that U.S. antitrust authorities are traditionally expected to operate independently of the White House. 

Now, what began as speculation became reality on the night of December 8th (CET), when reports confirmed that Paramount Pictures had officially entered the bidding race, submitting its own bid for Warner Bros. While presenting itself as the 'savior of Hollywood', Paramount, too, is not entirely neutral. Recently acquired by Skydance Media, it’s led by CEO David Ellison, whose close ties to Donald Trump are well documented. This raises further questions about Trump’s motivation. After all, Warner Bros. also owns cable assets like CNN, a network that has been openly critical of Trump throughout his presidency and that he routinely dismissed as “fake media.” So one has to wonder: Is Trump’s sudden involvement really about protecting competition?

Actress and activist Jane Fonda put it starkly, calling the deal ‘an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and – potentially – the First Amendment itself.’

Whichever company ends up making the cut – if any of them, since also Paramount is facing scrutiny from antitrust authorities – one thing is clear: in a climate where independent media is getting scarcer, where political actors are increasingly seeking influence over media, and where that influence can easily be bought with money, we need to look much more closely at the paradigms and legal structures behind deals like these – and start challenging them. 

Act II: The logic of corporate ownership

While everyone’s busy discussing who’s buying whom and who owns what, we want to shift the spotlight to the underlying structure of it all: corporate ownership. Because the way companies are owned doesn’t just shape business deals, it shapes our economy, our culture, and the kind of society we live in.

Corporate ownership defines who legally owns a company and what rights come with it. Conventionally, these rights (voting rights/ power over the company and economic rights/ money) are bundled up together. The owners (shareholders) both hold control of the company (they legally have the final say over the company) and are able to monetize the company's value and receive its profits. Power and economic rights can be inherited, bought and sold. Legally speaking, this turns the company into a commodity: a tool for generating financial wealth for its owners; an asset that can be sold off to the highest bidder. And that in turn influences how and with what motives major decisions are made. 

Now, this may be the dominating societal understanding of corporate ownership, but it’s not the only one (we will come to that later)!

It is, however, also the type of ownership structure that both Warner Bros. and Netflix are structured as. Let’s take a closer look.

Ownership Structure: Warner Bros. and Netflix

Warner Bros. (5) is a publicly traded company. Its shares (encompassing voting rights and economic rights) are being traded on the stock market which are owned by private individuals and large institutional investors, among them:

Note: “Insiders” refers to senior management and members of the board of directors. In the event the deal closes, Warner Bros. executives would therefore stand to benefit financially from the transaction.

Netflix (6) is also a publicly traded company. Its shares are owned by private individuals and large institutional investors, among them quite some familiar names:

Disclaimer: In both cases, this is not a complete list of shareholders. For full details, see footnotes. Ownership data as of December 17, 2025.

In principle, anyone holding a share is an owner. That most likely also includes many of us: we may hold Netflix or WBD stock directly, or indirectly through pension funds, ETFs, or index funds managed by large asset managers, such as the ones listed above. We might not even know that a tiny fraction of our savings is invested in these companies, and yet, we are technically the owners. Through these structures, we hold rights, we (directly or indirectly) influence how major decisions are made, and we benefit financially when things go well. At the same time, this kind of dispersed, often invisible ownership creates a vacuum of responsibility: Many owners only have tiny stakes and are far removed from the company; they are not in a position or not willing, or even unaware that they have the voting power to influence the company’s direction. The company’s board and CEO primarily sees its responsibility in increasing value for the shareholders, and are acting in reaction to changes in the stock valuation. Since management cannot consult every individual shareholder, or even meaningful groups of them, they may tend to orient themselves toward the interests of the largest shareholders (in this case, institutional investors) and their own idea of what will keep “the market” happy. No one really feels accountable for what these corporations actually do and the consequences of their behavior for society.

Both Netflix and Warner Bros. operate within these highly dispersed shareholder-value ownership structures. And so, at its core, the motivation behind a deal like this boils down to one thing: financial value generation. Putting it clearly, this means that power over a company that shapes our culture and influences all of our lives is effectively sold to the highest bidder to increase value for the shareholders. The industry, the people working in it, and broader societal welfare can all end up taking a back seat.

Extra pressure through financing logic

Both Warner Bros. and Netflix are thus operating under pressure to create and increase value for their respective shareholders. This pressure will only intensify after the potential takeover. $82.7 billion is a high number and with Paramount entering the race, it could climb even higher. One thing is clear: Netflix will need to make that investment pay off. That means that profits generated from Warner Bros., along with the expected boost in valuation for Netflix and expected synergies, need to be high enough to justify the price tag Netflix is paying. In other words: the acquired company now carries the burden of proving its worth and earning back the costs. And in that shareholder value-dominated environment, it’s rather rare to wait patiently for a 20- or 30-year return on an investment. This, in turn, means that the pressure to recoup the investment only intensifies the demand for fast shareholder value.

And this pressure is only further increased because of how the deal will supposedly be financed. Most of the $82.7 billion are supposed to be financed through debt (7), the rest through stock. This means Warner Bros. shareholders (owners) get both cash and Netflix shares, and thereby become Netflix owners themselves. Most of the debt comes in the form of a temporary loan that Netflix probably will have to replace with longer-term debt. That usually happens by issuing corporate bonds, which will only be attractive if Netflix shows strong financial performance, putting pressure on Netflix and its subsidiaries to deliver upon it. 

Interestingly, these bonds are typically bought by institutional investors and could end up in the portfolios of the very same large asset managers who already hold Netflix stock (and will have held Warner Bros. stock). In that case, these institutional investors would earn money three times: once as sellers of Warner Bros, once as shareholders of Netflix through its (potentially) increased value, and once as lenders. So, are these shareholders, in a way, selling Warner Bros. to themselves? It’s certainly more complicated than “left pocket, right pocket,” but it does show how financialized corporate ownership often functions: like portfolio assets that can be shifted around rather than long-term commitments to and responsibility for a specific company.

All of this matters because:
(a) it shows the financial pressure a company takes on when it does a deal like this,
(b) it reveals the intricate relationship of this deal: former Warner Bros. owners become Netflix owners while Netflix becomes the owner of Warner Bros., and
(c) it illustrates just how deeply financialized today’s ownership structures really are.

In the case of a platform like Netflix, the (increasing) performance and growth pressure will probably mean: cutting costs with detrimental effects in the entertainment industry (8), increasing prices for users, and, most of all, keeping more people busy binge-watching more content that is produced quickly and driven by algorithms. While in its public statement about the acquisition, Netflix emphasized its commitment to better content, a superior user experience, and a stronger entertainment ecosystem – all the wonderful things you’d expect to hear. The announcement, however, also made another objective very clear: it’s delivering more shareholder value (9). A goal that is so closely tied to the nature of its ownership structure. 

Power concentration … in the entertainment sector

The main factor likely justifying the high financial pressure of this deal for Netflix is the opportunity to further strengthen its powerful position in the market. With fewer major players left in the market, Netflix gains more market power and can shape conditions increasingly in its own favor. 

What might that look like in practice? For one, Netflix could raise subscription prices without losing many users. After all, where are people supposed to go if Netflix controls much of the most sought-after content? It could also slip into tacit collusion: With only a handful of big platforms, implicit coordination becomes easier. One company raises prices, the others quietly follow, and consumers pay more for fewer choices, all without anyone technically breaking the rules. A local cinema that once relied on Warner Bros. titles could be forced to shut down and to survive, smaller players may have no choice but to sell or merge with larger corporations, speeding up an already rapid concentration of ownership. 

The concentration of power in one or a few dominant companies ultimately leads to welfare losses not only for customers and employees, but for society as a whole. Consumers are effectively pushed to pay higher prices for less diversity and weaker alternatives. Cultural variety suffers when fewer gatekeepers decide what gets made and what doesn’t. Workers and smaller businesses lose bargaining power, local ecosystems (like cinemas, small distributors, indie studios) become more fragile, and public debate is shaped by an ever narrower set of platforms and narratives.

Power concentration … in corporate ownership

This concentration of power doesn’t stop at consumer markets or the entertainment industry. As we’ve already seen with Netflix and Warner Bros., there is clear overlap in their institutional shareholders. And this is actually not unique to those two: a large share of global capital markets is controlled by a small group of giant asset managers, meaning the same investors hold significant stakes in multiple competing firms. At the center of this sit the “Big Three” asset managers: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. In the U.S., they are now among the largest shareholders in nearly 40% of all public companies (10). This is concerning on several accounts, most of all on the level of influence that a relatively small group of private actors gains on the U.S. and global economy. 

As their nature suggests, they are mostly managing assets for increasing financial wealth, usually with a short-term market logic. So while they hold a lot of power over many companies, they are less likely to act on their power by taking on responsibility for single companies, extensifying the vacuum of responsibility described above. And when they (directly or indirectly) use their power, it has implications on how firms behave: While empirical studies do not yet provide consistent or definitive results, there is an ongoing debate about whether these very same investors, when holding stakes in competing companies, may actually benefit more from less competition between companies rather than more, as one firm’s loss is another’s gain within their portfolio. And, as outlined above, reduced competition quickly results in lower welfare for customers and society. While going beyond the potential Netflix-Warner Bros. deal, this development is looked at with concern by many.

Epilogue: What does it teach us?

The potential Netflix-Warner Bros. deal is one that clearly brings to mind the problems and questions that come with the dominant form of corporate ownership in our society. Ownership is not just about the question “who gets the profits”; it’s about who gets to decide what the companies we depend on actually do: the ones we buy from, work for, trust with our data, rely on for news, and that increasingly shape our politics and culture. 

As we unpack the many layers of the potential deal – from Netflix’s business model as a tech company, to the logic of shareholder value, to the financial pressures behind the scenes and the impact on power in the entertainment industry – the consequences of the dominating ownership logic for society become clear.  

Companies that shape our culture, information, and daily lives can simply be sold to the highest bidder, even if many people feel that buyer is not the right fit. This logic sits at the heart of shareholder-value capitalism, where ownership is treated primarily as a financial asset to be maximized, rather than a responsibility to be exercised. The result is that a company’s purpose, its broader stakeholders, and its impact on society often become secondary – an afterthought to shareholder value and short-term profit maximization.

Now, we might find ourselves staring out the window, channeling our inner Carrie Bradshaw (known from 'Sex and the City', yet another HBO classic) and thinking “And as I looked at the tangled web of power and money, I couldn’t help but wonder, isn’t there another way to structure the ownership of businesses?” 

The answer is: yes, Carrie, there is, but we’re so used to headlines about one company buying another that we rarely pause to ask: What ownership structures are behind all this? Whose interests do they really serve? And what alternatives exist? And how can we get back to a system in which individuals take on responsibility and accountability for companies – not to maximize shareholder value but for the good of the company’s customers, for great products and services, and for society?

First of all: There are alternatives. Companies don’t have to be built solely around maximizing shareholder value at all costs. They can be structured differently. One example is steward-ownership: an ownership model designed on the basis of separating voting rights (power) from economic rights (money) so that a company is controlled by people who are actively stewarding its mission, not by whoever happens to put the most money on the table. In such a setup, investors can still earn fair returns. But ownership is structured in a way that the purpose of the company comes first. There is more space for long-term thinking, more patience, and more alignment between a company’s mission and its ownership (learn more about steward-ownership in this YouTube video).

That said, saying “If Warner Bros. and Netflix were steward-owned, then...” is just the easy answer. Reality is far more complex. But that shouldn’t stop us, if anything, it should encourage us to ask more seriously: What kinds of ownership models are most suited to the companies we build? We can stop treating conventional ownership structures as unchangeable laws of nature – the supposed “corporate laws of physics” – and instead begin to explore: How else could ownership be structured? What kinds of models truly support the businesses we want to build and with it the societies we want to live in?

And when it comes to two stock market-listed giants like Netflix and Warner Bros., we certainly do wonder: Can these companies ever shift away from shareholder-value logic, or is it already too late? Is their ownership too dispersed, too financialized? Does the real opportunity now lie in building strong, purpose-oriented alternatives from the ground up – companies that are independent, values-driven, and not for sale to the highest bidder?

In the spirit of Warner Bros.’ timeless storytelling, maybe it’s time we started writing a different kind of ending. Because “the stories we tell literally make the world” and our world could use more stories about diverse forms of ownership, the positive power of entrepreneurship, and companies built on courage, responsibility, and hope.