James Cameron has waded into the high-stakes sale of Warner Bros. Discovery, warning that a Netflix takeover of the studio “would be a disaster” for Hollywood and for theatrical cinema. His comments land just as Netflix, Paramount Skydance and Comcast submit binding second-round bids for the company, including a mostly cash offer from Netflix, according to people briefed on the process.
Speaking on Matthew Belloni’s podcast, Cameron said he views Paramount, backed by David Ellison, as “the best choice” to acquire Warner, arguing that the studio’s legacy in tentpole filmmaking demands owners who believe in cinemas as the primary destination. By contrast, he pointed to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ past remarks that “theatrical is dead” and dismissed the streamer’s practice of brief theatrical runs for awards hopefuls as “sucker bait” and “fundamentally rotten at the core.”
Cameron extended the critique to awards eligibility, insisting that films built for home platforms should not compete at the Oscars unless they commit to a full theatrical window. He proposed a threshold of a month in roughly 2,000 cinemas before streaming, saying the Academy Awards “mean nothing” to him if they do not represent theatrical work. The remarks follow years of near-misses for Netflix in the best picture race and arrive as the company campaigns titles such as Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein off limited big-screen runs.
His stance collides with another powerful voice around the sale. John Malone, Warner Bros. Discovery’s chair emeritus and a major shareholder, told CNBC he views all current suitors as “aggressive bidders” with different motives, likening them to blind men describing the same elephant. Malone said Ellison sees Warner as a technology platform that can use AI across social and streaming, while Netflix executives see “a great way to have the best library and the best production studio.” He argued that a Netflix purchase could be “much less disruptive to Hollywood,” adding rather than compressing production.
Behind the rhetoric sit concrete deal dynamics. Warner Bros. Discovery has asked bidders for improved offers by December 1 and is weighing a sale against a planned 2026 split into separate studio-streaming and cable companies. Any buyer would face regulatory scrutiny around HBO, CNN and the company’s share of theatrical distribution. Cameron, whose Avatar: Fire and Ash opens exclusively in cinemas this month, has framed the outcome as a referendum on whether the studio behind The Wizard of Oz, The Exorcist and Barbie remains led by theatrical loyalists or shifts under a streaming-first owner.
