By. Gov. David Paterson
It seems like Netflix is everywhere these days.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow has earned rave reviews on Broadway.
Netflix’s annual Tudum festival drew nearly 10,000 attendees in Los Angeles last year and featured a live performance by Lady Gaga.
The MGM Grand in Las Vegas hosted a Netflix-themed pop-up restaurant, which closed in January as the streamer prepares to open its third “Netflix House” immersive entertainment venue on the Strip. The other two, located near Dallas and Philadelphia, opened last year.
Netflix has also aimed to increase its dominance via a massive acquisition deal with Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal would have seen Netflix acquire the Max streaming service, Warner Bros.’ film production studio, and a host of beloved franchises.
Now, the deal is off as Netflix backs down in the face of competing bids to buy Warner Bros.
Consumers should cheer. The company that launched in 1997 as a humble DVD mailing service is trying to become synonymous with entertainment, but there’s a dark side to all that expansion.
New York City is currently home to around 38,000 actors and performers, plus thousands of other film and television professionals: screenwriters, visual effects artists, cinematographers, editors, costume designers, and so on.
A 2019 impact study found that the city’s film and TV industry supports 185,000 total jobs and accounts for $18.1 billion in wages and $81.6 billion in total economic output.
When I served as governor, I was proud to support this vital industry by signing legislation that tripled the Empire State film production tax credit. But these workers need more than just tax breaks to flourish. They need multiple bidders competing for their creative talents.
Netflix currently competes with HBO Max to acquire new content and with Warner Bros. for actors, writers, and skilled technical crew members.
Had Netflix purchased both, it would have drastically reduced the competition in the industry. Less competition would have meant fewer jobs, lower wages, and less bargaining power for unions like SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild.
As the Netflix series Squid Game demonstrates, when you’re the only game in town, everyone must compete on your terms — no matter how disagreeable they are.
New York State’s hundreds of movie theaters (and the thousands of workers they employ) would have also suffered had the deal gone through.
Theaters are already in trouble. Prior to COVID, a typical movie stayed in theaters for around 80 days. By 2024, the average was down to 32 days.
With one of Hollywood’s “Big Five” studios in the hands of Netflix, which usually doesn’t release its movies in theaters at all, that number could have dropped even lower.
Last year, Warner Bros. releases grossed nearly $1.9 billion at the U.S. box office, accounting for about one-fifth of all ticket sale revenue. The studio had the top-grossing film of the year (A Minecraft Movie at $424 million), three of the top 10 (including critical darling Sinners), and seven of the top 20.
Now imagine all those movies went straight to streaming instead. Struggling theaters would have missed out on selling 150 million tickets, as well as innumerable sodas, candy bars, and buckets of popcorn. Many would not have survived.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandon had promised to release Warner Bros. films in theaters for at least 45 days before making them available for streaming, but that still would have been a serious blow to theaters.
Thankfully, all the public pressure on Netflix seems to have worked.
Everyone has reason to be pleased this mega-deal is no longer on the table. And good on lawmakers and antitrust enforcers for helping to get us there.
David Paterson served as the 55th Governor of the State of New York
See original article here: NYC’s film industry just dodged a bullet