Netflix Debated Launching a Theatrical Movie Business Before Warner Bros. Deal, Co-CEOs Say

Netflix has never been against putting its movies in theaters, according to the streamer’s top execs — but before it agreed to buy Warner Bros., it was too busy managing the fast-growing streaming business.

Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, speaking on the company’s Q4 2025 earnings interview, said the company had in the past internally debated whether or not to launch a business to distribute original Netflix films in theaters. But that always fell short of Netflix’s priorities list as the streaming side of the company continued to grow quickly.

Of course, the perception that Netflix doesn’t think theatrical is a great business was crystallized by Sarandos’ comments last year that moviegoing was “outmoded.” At the Time100 Summit in April 2025, Sarandos called the communal moviegoing experience “an outmoded idea.”

But that was then, and this is now, Sarandos told analysts Tuesday. “We were not in the theatrical…