Can Silicon Valley Fix Hollywood?
Midjourney: Curt Doty with apologies to Dario Argento and Tinto Brass
Why Netflix Buying Warner Bros Could Be a Win.
Imagine this: Netflix, the streaming giant, acquires Warner Bros. That sounds like hyperbole. But in an age of consolidation, vertical integration, and arms‑race content spending, maybe it’s not just inevitable - maybe it’s smart. Before you jump to “media monopoly bad,” hear me out.
Scale gives creative breathing room (if done right). Right now, legacy studios are squeezed by debt loads, fragmented distribution windows, and shrinking theatrical margins. Warner Bros, with its recent box office smashes and IP (A Minecraft Movie, Superman, The Conjuring, F1, Weapons, etc.), already has enormous leverage. Netflix brings deep pockets, global reach, and agility. That means franchise risk can be spread across territories, experiments funded at smaller scale, and prestige projects subsidized by volume hits.
Contrast that with sub‑scale studios that must chase each hit to survive — which pushes them toward safe formulas and reboots. The combined entity could support more risks.
Better streaming economics plus library monetization equals is the future. Netflix already has international reach, data infrastructure, and customer relationships. Merging in Warner’s deep back catalog (and future pipeline) means fewer licensing levers, more control over release windows, and higher margins on owned content. The “middleman tax” of paying third parties declines.
Plus, owning the full distribution stack avoids cannibalization arguments: Netflix can release a film theatrically and stream it, and manage the cadence to avoid subscriber backlash.
Conversely, there is the Paramount / Oracle playbook. Remember the reports that Larry Ellison (via Oracle interests) is financially backing the Paramount‑Skydance bid for Warner Bros. Discovery led by son David? The idea there is vertical consolidation: a tech/data titan influencing media content control. The Netflix + Warner merger would be a kind of preemptive strike against that kind of dominance-claiming consolidation.
If Oracle (or the Ellisons) end up controlling Warner, you get a media “stack” too—but one anchored in tech rather than creative instincts, conversative values vs. creative freedom. With Netflix in control, perhaps content gets more breathing room, rather than being subsumed under conservative priorities.
But beware: concentration does breed risk. We must concede the flip side: more consolidation means fewer independent voices, more gatekeeping, and “conversative ownership” — especially for film. If a single giant studio/streamer controls too many releases, it can decide what kinds of movies “get to be seen.” That’s a danger and could be the Death of Hollywood. Going with Netflix, consolidates power as Netflix, Apple and Amazon have won the streaming wars (Sorry Peacock). Netflix will shield its creators from conservative censorship.
I reminded readers in my last blog about censorship: once gatekeepers decide what’s permissible, the rest die quietly.
So the bet is: Netflix becomes the future of Hollywood, or does Oracle/Paramount win and gatekeeps the conservative narrative and simply consolidates the harm?
Cinema’s warning: 10 iconic films that taught us about fascism
To frame this in cinematic terms: film has long warned us about what happens when power centralizes, dissent is silenced, and mass spectacle becomes propaganda. Here are ten (not random, but deeply resonant) films that show the danger of authoritarian control — exactly the risk you run when one entity controls story, scale, and gatekeeping:
Triumph of the Will (1935) — the poster child of fascist propaganda. Wikipedia
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) — one of Hollywood’s earliest anti‑Nazi films. Wikipedia
The Mortal Storm (1940) — shows how everyday life buckles under ideology. Wikipedia
The White Ribbon (2009) — subtle, macabre portrait of authoritarian seeds in a small town. IMDb
American History X (1998) — how fascist ideas seduce youth, and how hard it is to escape them. IMDb
Life Is Beautiful (1997) — tragicomic exploration of human dignity under tyranny. MovieWeb
Defiance (2008) — resistance in the face of genocide and collapse. MovieWeb
The Wave (2008) — microcosm experiment of how groupthink leads to authoritarianism. IMDb
Schindlers List (1993) — In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.. IMDb
The Great Dictator (1940) — Chaplin’s jabbing satire of Hitler & tyranny. IMDb
Could these types of movies be made in the future? Each warns: when story control narrows, dissent shrinks. When spectacle is controlled, propaganda follows. Oh, by the way ANTIFA is short for Anti-Fascists, which the greatest generation fought against and died for.
If Netflix protects internal innovation, greenlights risky auteur projects, and doesn’t shrink its aperture over time, then merging Warner gives it the scale to underwrite more unusual work.
If Netflix instead becomes a “curator of safe bets,” it’ll magnify the very problems consolidation causes.
The Oracle / Paramount scheme shows one path: conservative tech-backed media should scare us; Netflix-led media might (optimistically) restore the creative community’s independence.
But we must guard against conversative ownership. Do we really need censors and propagandists polluting the greenlight pipeline so that “one studio rules all” and becomes “one idea rules all?”
Sources:
https://www.realmiq.com/blog/the-real-threat-to-hollywood-ownership-not-automation
https://www.realmiq.com/blog/five-films-that-should-scare-the-hell-out-of-you
https://deadline.com/2025/09/warner-bros-box-office-2025-1236557609/
About the Author
Curt Doty, founder of CurtDoty.co, is an award winning creative director whose legacy lies in branding, product development, social strategy, integrated marketing, and User Experience Design. His work of entertainment branding includes Electronic Arts, EA Sports, ProSieben, SAT.1, WBTV Latin America, Discovery Health, ABC, CBS, A&E, StarTV, Fox, Kabel 1, and TV Guide Channel. His work in movie marketing spans the major studios: Universal Pictures, Fox Searchlight, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Miramax and Disney. He is now helping independent filmmakers market their movies for festivals and distribution.
He currently serves on the board of the Godfrey Reggio Foundation and is the AI Writer for Parlay Me.
To learn more about Curt’s pedigree of innovation, check this out.
