Disaster, catastrophe and nightmare. That's how Hollywood's creative workers describe the fall of the once mighty Warner Bros, as Netflix and Paramount battle to buy the historic studio and tinsel town braces for more upheaval and job losses.
Warner's decline and impending sale – whether it's to Paramount Skydance as a whole, or to Netflix cut up in parts – is being mourned in Hollywood, where a historic production slump has already battered the entertainment industry. The loss of the studio, which has created iconic films ranging from Casablanca and Goodfellas to Batman and Harry Potter, likely means more job cuts and definitely means one less buyer of film and TV projects.
Interviews with dozens of actors, producers and camera crews by the BBC reveal an industry attempting to weigh the lesser of two evils: control by a tech giant blamed for killing movie theatres (Netflix) or billionaires seen as too cosy with President Trump (Paramount).
David Ellison is a right-wing billionaire Trumper, a camera assistant said of the Paramount Skydance CEO who is the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder and close Trump ally Larry Ellison. Netflix is much more historically inclined to not micromanage production.
If Netflix gets the deal they want, they will buy Warner Bros' crown jewels – the 102-year-old studio, HBO, and its vast archive of films and TV shows – leaving Warners's legacy TV networks, like CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery, for another buyer.
Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance's $108bn hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros includes backing from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and a fund started by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law. It has raised concerns about the possibility of censorship and government overreach.
The Warner Bros deal is the latest in a long line of major shake-ups in Hollywood since the pandemic. Film and TV productions ground to a halt in 2023 during simultaneous actor and writer strikes. Seemingly everyone in Hollywood was working in 2022 as studios and streaming services went into creative overdrive after Covid shutdowns. But when the labour strikes ended, the production boom never returned.
When Warner Bros put up a for-sale sign, Paramount launched an eager campaign to buy the company. But the studio ultimately announced a tentative deal with Netflix. A spurned Paramount then went direct to Warner Bros Discovery shareholders with a hostile takeover offer that they say is superior to the Netflix deal.
Whether they're rooting for Paramount or Netflix or another potential buyer, the one thing people in Hollywood seem to agree on is this story's villain - Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who earned $51.9m last year as Warner Bros lost more than $11bn and the company's stock fell nearly 7%.
For many film workers, whoever buys Warner Bros has felt almost irrelevant. They have instead been focusing on how to reinvent themselves as the industry shrinks amid consolidation and the growing use of AI in entertainment.
Every morning, no matter how much I tell myself to stay positive, I wake up feeling like I've failed in every direction, says an actor who is now homeless with his wife and two children, relying on the kindness of friends and food banks while he works odd jobs. He asked not to be identified out of fear it could impact future work.
According to others, Netflix's treatment of the Egyptian Theatre, which they renovated in 2020, can count as a sign of goodwill, contrasting with fears surrounding their influence in the industry.
