What are the key takeaways from this This Week in Startups episode?

Key insights include: **M&A Regulatory Environment:** The acquisition faces intense international scrutiny, particularly in Europe where Netflix plus HBO Max creates dominant market position. EU regulators already concerned about Netflix's theatrical window practices, making European approval harder than US regulatory clearance despite Trump administration connections.; **Theatrical Distribution Economics:** Warner Brothers produces major tentpole films including Superman, Minecraft, and Conjuring franchises that drive theater attendance. Removing these from theatrical release could collapse the cinema industry, forcing remaining studios to negotiate new distribution models with shortened exclusive windows before streaming availability.; **Disney Competitive Strategy:** Disney should acquire theater chains like AMC (valued at $1.2 billion) and offer Disney Plus subscribers $1 movie tickets plus $100 theater rentals. This creates competitive advantage through authentication-based access, priority merchandise for long-term members, and one-week preview windows for new series.

What did Alex Wilhelm and Lon Harris discuss on This Week in Startups?

Netflix acquires Warner Brothers film and TV assets for $72 billion, gaining Harry Potter, HBO, DC Comics, and Barbie franchises. Discussion covers regulatory challenges, theatrical distribution strategy, and Disney's potential competitive response. Key topics include: **M&A Regulatory Environment:** The acquisition faces intense international scrutiny, particularly in Europe where Netflix plus HBO Max creates dominant market position. EU regulators already concerned about Netflix's theatrical window practices, making European approval harder than US regulatory clearance despite Trump administration connections.; **Theatrical Distribution Economics:** Warner Brothers produces major tentpole films including Superman, Minecraft, and Conjuring franchises that drive theater attendance. Removing these from theatrical release could collapse the cinema industry, forcing remaining studios to negotiate new distribution models with shortened exclusive windows before streaming availability..

How long is this episode of This Week in Startups?

This episode is 62 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

This Week in Startups

Netflix buys WB + why Jason should run Disney | E2219

December 6, 2025

62 min episode · 2 min read

Alex Wilhelm,Lon Harris

Episode

62 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Fundraising & VC, Sales & Revenue, Artificial Intelligence

AI-Generated Summary

Published Dec 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

✓M&A Regulatory Environment: The acquisition faces intense international scrutiny, particularly in Europe where Netflix plus HBO Max creates dominant market position. EU regulators already concerned about Netflix's theatrical window practices, making European approval harder than US regulatory clearance despite Trump administration connections.
✓Theatrical Distribution Economics: Warner Brothers produces major tentpole films including Superman, Minecraft, and Conjuring franchises that drive theater attendance. Removing these from theatrical release could collapse the cinema industry, forcing remaining studios to negotiate new distribution models with shortened exclusive windows before streaming availability.
✓Disney Competitive Strategy: Disney should acquire theater chains like AMC (valued at $1.2 billion) and offer Disney Plus subscribers $1 movie tickets plus $100 theater rentals. This creates competitive advantage through authentication-based access, priority merchandise for long-term members, and one-week preview windows for new series.
✓Content Licensing Framework: Large language models and AI companies should pay minimum 10-50% of revenue to content providers, similar to YouTube's 55% creator split. Authentication systems allowing users to connect subscriptions (New York Times, Disney Plus) to AI platforms creates proper licensing while maintaining competitive differentiation.
✓Expert Training Market: Companies like MicroOne reaching $100 million ARR demonstrate sustainable business model as AI companies exhaust scrapable data. Expert-driven training represents second inning of AI development, with half-dozen important players emerging to provide human expertise for model improvement and validation.

What It Covers

Netflix acquires Warner Brothers film and TV assets for $72 billion, gaining Harry Potter, HBO, DC Comics, and Barbie franchises. Discussion covers regulatory challenges, theatrical distribution strategy, and Disney's potential competitive response.

Key Questions Answered

•M&A Regulatory Environment: The acquisition faces intense international scrutiny, particularly in Europe where Netflix plus HBO Max creates dominant market position. EU regulators already concerned about Netflix's theatrical window practices, making European approval harder than US regulatory clearance despite Trump administration connections.
•Theatrical Distribution Economics: Warner Brothers produces major tentpole films including Superman, Minecraft, and Conjuring franchises that drive theater attendance. Removing these from theatrical release could collapse the cinema industry, forcing remaining studios to negotiate new distribution models with shortened exclusive windows before streaming availability.
•Disney Competitive Strategy: Disney should acquire theater chains like AMC (valued at $1.2 billion) and offer Disney Plus subscribers $1 movie tickets plus $100 theater rentals. This creates competitive advantage through authentication-based access, priority merchandise for long-term members, and one-week preview windows for new series.
•Content Licensing Framework: Large language models and AI companies should pay minimum 10-50% of revenue to content providers, similar to YouTube's 55% creator split. Authentication systems allowing users to connect subscriptions (New York Times, Disney Plus) to AI platforms creates proper licensing while maintaining competitive differentiation.
•Expert Training Market: Companies like MicroOne reaching $100 million ARR demonstrate sustainable business model as AI companies exhaust scrapable data. Expert-driven training represents second inning of AI development, with half-dozen important players emerging to provide human expertise for model improvement and validation.

Notable Moment

The host proposes running Disney for two years as audition for permanent CEO role, outlining strategy to buy theater chains, create member-exclusive access, and recruit directors like Tarantino and Spielberg by guaranteeing theatrical releases and creative control over programming.

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Episode Transcript

Bidding process is over. Netflix has won the bidding war to obtain Warner Brothers. Now the film and TV studio and all of the Warner Brothers IP, Harry Potter, HBO shows, Barbie, DC Comics, That's all on its way to Netflix should this deal get past the next level of regulatory scrutiny, which is going to be, I suspect, very intense. But I would also say internationally is the huge concern, I think, here for regulators. Netflix plus HBO Max is going to be a dominant player in a lot of international markets. Netflix already has been really tough for a lot of international marketplaces. Like, they're already dominating. So that's, like, the real next thing we have to look out for. The deal as of now, 72,000,000,000, so 82,700,000,000.0 in total enterprise value. That's for the film and TV assets. What's the market cap now of Netflix? So this is a $70,000,000,000 deal. What does this represent in terms of the percentage of Netflix? This Week in Startups is brought to you by Pipedrive. Bring clarity and control to your sales process with Pipedrive, the number one CRM for small and medium sized businesses. Supercharge your sales today. Start with a thirty day free trial. Pipedrive.com/twist. LinkedIn ads. Start converting your b to b audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 free when you spend at least 250. Go to linkedin.com/ this week in startups to claim your credit. And Sentry, your team should be focused on shipping features, not chasing down bugs. New users get three months free of the business plan, which covers a 150,000 errors. Go to century.io/twist and use the code twist. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to this week in startups. I'm your host, Jason Calacanis. With me, of course, Alex Wilhelm. How you doing, Alex? Fantastic. And if you see Lonnie Donnie, our editorial director, Lon Harris is here, that means there's something big happening in entertainment and media. Lon, what is it? Could not be bigger. So the bidding process is over. Netflix has won the bidding war to obtain Warner Brothers. Now Paramount wanted all of Warner Brothers Discovery. They wanted the cable networks. They wanted CNN. They wanted everything. This deal is going to be for the Warner Brothers TV and film studio. So the cable network, CNN, all those Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, they will get spun out as a separate company and remain independent or get swallowed up by somebody else most likely. But the film and TV studio and all of the Warner Brothers IP, Harry Potter, HBO shows, Barbie, DC Comics, that's all on its way to Netflix should this deal get past the next level of regulatory scrutiny, which is going to be, I suspect, very intense. I think that people are sort of focusing on the Trump administration, the FCC. Will American regulatory agencies let this through? Obviously, the Ellisons from Paramount, semi aligned with the Trump administration. We …

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