<\/p>\n
When Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos left the White House on Feb. 26, journalists tracking the streamer\u2019s bid to buy Warner Bros.\u2019 storied movie and TV studios, along with HBO Max, scoured photographs capturing his every expression, from the slightest hint of defeat to a smile. Ultimately, he looked like the cat who ate the canary.<\/p>\n
That interpretation isn\u2019t so far off the mark, according to the first interview Sarandos<\/a> has given, to Bloomberg News, since Netflix unveiled that it was pulling out of its $82.7 billion proposed deal minutes after Sarandos drove away from 1,600 Pennsylvania Ave., rather than try to match a sweetened bid submitted by David Ellison\u2019s Paramount-Skydance, valued at $111 billion. That includes taking on more than $95 million in debt, making it the largest leveraged buyout in history in a move that could disrupt Hollywood to its core and result in massive layoffs.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Many assume that Ellison\u2019s father \u2014 Oracle founder and Trump friend Larry Ellison, who is among the world\u2019s richest men \u2014 will always provide a life raft, although he\u2019s already personally guaranteed more than $57 million of the debt.<\/p>\n Many have also assumed Trump himself would ultimately be the judge and jury in terms of which bidder WBD went to by exerting pressure on regulators. The one property Trump cares most about is celebrity.land, which would have been spun off with other cable networks. Paramount wants the whole company.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the beginning of this, I knew there was a very sexy idea that he was going to make the call. It was never the case. It was very clear from our first discussion that he never intended that to be the case,\u201d Sarandos said. \u201cOnce it was clear that we weren\u2019t in the celebrity.land business, it was a lot less interesting. He didn\u2019t care that much more about our deal.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent days, Trump did use his fiery rhetoric to call on Netflix to fire top Democrat and former Obama official Susan Rice from the company\u2019s board after suggesting that companies that succumb to Trump \u2014 as Ellison\u2019s Skydance has done with the Paramount-owned CBS News \u2014 could regret it once Democrats are back in power. \u201cI don\u2019t want or expect our board members to be out talking about politics ever, let alone in the middle of a deal, but they do have the right to speak, and she wasn\u2019t speaking for Netflix,\u201d the exec said. He shared that he relayed these concerns to Rice, but said he never considered letting her go.<\/p>\n Netflix has been heavily scrutinized for not exactly being known as a team player when it comes to giving its films a traditional theatrical run. But times have changed so drastically since the pandemic that Netflix told lawmakers and others it would abide by a 45-day exclusive run in theaters if it were to own Warner Bros. (last year, at least half of all studio releases had an even shorter window, with the shortest being three weekends, or 17 days).<\/p>\n One major bonus: Sarandos says going through this process has opened a level of dialogue with theater operators that hasn\u2019t excited before (the streamer could even buy theaters if it wanted, since it has the cash). \u201cOne thing that\u2019s been great about it is getting to know and having open dialogue with the theater owners. I really didn\u2019t have much reason to before,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve figured out some really creative things to do together, as you saw with\u00a0Stranger Things<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0KPop Demon Hunters<\/em>. We have\u00a0One Piece<\/em>\u00a0in theaters next week in the U.S. and Japan. I think we\u2019re going find a bunch of cool things to do together going forward. I could see us doing things that we haven\u2019t done before.\u201d<\/p>\n He also agreed that \u201cunusual\u201d is one word to describe Ellison.<\/p>\n \u201cUnusual, yeah, unusual, irrational, whatever words you want to use in that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be fascinating to see the next steps. I have been on the record a lot in the last two weeks talking about what I think the future looks like. I\u2019m confident in our future that we\u2019re not impacted by all that. In fact, maybe it\u2019s to our advantage. But I hope I\u2019m wrong for the sake of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Beating out Netflix wasn\u2019t the only major milestone for the young Ellison and the industry veterans he\u2019s installed at Paramount, including Motion Group co-chairs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, whose team across marketing and distribution successfully opened Scream 3<\/em> over the Feb. 28-March 1 weekend to a record-shattering $64 million domestically and north of $100 million globally. Spyglass fully produced the slasher pic, with Paramount putting up half the budget.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos left the White House on Feb. 26, journalists tracking the streamer\u2019s bid to buy Warner Bros.\u2019 storied movie and TV studios, along with HBO Max, scoured photographs capturing his every expression, from the slightest hint of defeat to a smile. Ultimately, he looked like the cat who ate the canary. 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