The last year has delivered some big upheavals in the film studio front. In 2025, Skydance formalized its acquisition of Paramount, and then Warner Bros. went up for sale shortly thereafter. As things currently stand, it’s looking like the studio that’s home to properties like Looney Tunes, DC and Harry Potter will be absorbed into Netflix, although Paramount hasn’t ended its efforts to take control of WB. But even assuming the Netflix deal goes through, director Christopher Nolan has voiced his concerns about how the studio being absorbed into the streamer is a “huge blow.”
In addition to delivering The Odyssey to the 2026 movies schedule this summer, Nolan is also the new president of the Directors Guild of America, which boasts 20,000 members. In addition to the union dealing with job losses and the rise of artificial intelligence, there’s fear that if Warner Bros. and Netflix merge, that could negatively impact the theatrical industry. The filmmaker said at a DGA roundtable (via Variety):
We have very, very significant concerns about how this is all going to happen. I think it’s a very worrying time for the industry. The loss of a major studio is a huge blow.
It’s no secret that Netflix and theaters don’t exactly go hand in hand. The streaming giant will often release some of its movies in limited runs on the big screen so they can qualify for awards consideration, and every now and then something like Glass Onion or KPop Demon Hunters will get to spend a little extra time in that setting. That said, the overwhelming majority of people use their Netflix subscription to stream the company’s original movies, leading to fear that Warner Bros.-produced movies would either spend less time in theaters or become streaming exclusives.
Last December, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos seemed to indicate that Warner Bros. movies would remain theatrical releases, specifically maintaining a 45-day exclusivity window. The DGA, while not taking a side between Netflix or Paramount, has pushed for that window to be expanded to 60 days, with Christoper Nolan adding:
We’re interested to hear more about the specifics of how they’re going to run these things. There are encouraging noises, but that’s not the same as commitments. The theatrical window becomes a sort of easily graspable symbol of whether Warner Bros. will be run as a theatrical distributor or whether it be folded in as a streamer. But the reality is, the issues on the television side and the streaming side are far more important to our membership.
Christopher Nolan used to have a close relationship with Warner Bros., with all his movies from Insomnia to Tenet being distributed by the studio. However, that relationship fractured when Nolan took issue with WB releasing all of its movies in 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still going in, simultaneously in theaters and to those with an HBO Max subscription. He subsequently struck a new deal with Universal Pictures, which distributed Oppenheimer and will do the same for The Odyssey.
But Christopher Nolan is a filmmaker who values the theatrical experience first and foremost, so it’s hardly surprising he’s concerned about what this change in ownership for Warner Bros. means. It’s not like he wants the studio to fail just because the partnership fell apart. However, that’s just one of the many issues he and the DGA will be dealing with for the foreseeable future. While we wait to see how things pan out on the Warner Bros./Netflix front, remember that The Odyssey comes out on July 17.
