James Cameron Doesn’t Want Netflix Buying Warner Bros.

Big Jim Cameron has no love in his heart for Big Red. The director of Titanic and three Avatars has spoken out against Netflix’s move to buy Warner Bros. Cameron sent a letter last week, which CNBC has now published, to Senator Mike Lee, who heads the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights. In it, Cameron claims that, if Netflix is allowed to purchase the studio, it will essentially destroy the film industry.

“I believe strongly that the proposed sale of Warner Brothers Discovery to Netflix will be disastrous for the theatrical motion picture business that I have dedicated my life’s work to,” Cameron writes in the letter. “Of course, my films all play in the downstream video markets as well, but my first love is the cinema.” The letter continues: 

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has called movie theaters “an outdated concept” and an “outmoded idea.” He has also said, at a recent earnings call, “Driving folks to a theater is just not our business.” The business model of Netflix is directly at odds with the theatrical production and exhibition business, which employs hundreds of thousands of Americans. It is therefore directly at odds with the business model of the Warner Brothers movie division, one of the few remaining major movie studios. Warners releases approximately 15 theatrical movies a year and the beleaguered motion picture exhibition community desperately depends on that output. 

Sarandos has said previously that Netflix would begin putting movies in theaters if Netflix is allowed to acquire WB. On Matt Belloni’s podcast The Town, Sarandos committed to a 45-day window in theaters (after previously saying 17), then sending films to PVOD, then to HBO Max, instead of just bringing movies to streaming immediately. But when pushed, he said he would not put that commitment in writing.

Cameron, meanwhile, is skeptical of this type of commitment. “Their pledge to support theatrical releases (a business fundamentally at odds with their core business model) is likely to evaporate in a few years,” he writes. “What are the teeth in the deal? What administrative body will hold them to task if they slowly sunset their so-called commitment to theatrical releases?” Sounds like Netflix will not be collaborating with Cameron on any upcoming projects.