Jason Kilar warns Netflix Warner Bros discovery deal would harm Hollywood competition

A major Hollywood shake-up emerges as Netflix enters talks for WBD.

The shocking news that Netflix is in talks to buy Warner Bros. Discovery is shaking the movie and TV businesses around the world.

Jason Kilar, ex-WarnerMedia CEO, is one of the first studio heads to publicly discuss the deal. We can say he’s not a fan.

“If I had to do it, I couldn’t think of a better way to lower competition in Hollywood than selling WBD to Netflix,” Kilar wrote on X as the deal became public late last night.

In response to an X post that didn’t agree with him, Kilar said, “When I say ‘competition in Hollywood,’ I mean having enough strong and active companies that can and will compete fiercely with each other to make and distribute movies, TV shows, live events, and more for decades to come.” My mind isn’t on what will happen in the future.

Kilar is a member of the Roblox board. From 2020 to 2022, he was CEO of WarnerMedia. The former CEO of Hulu and executive at Amazon was responsible for CNN, Warner Bros. Studios, and HBO, among other media companies. In his time there, the controversial “Project Popcorn” program sent WB’s 2021 movie schedule straight to HBO Max on the same day. He was in charge when HBO Max started up. Many creatives were upset about the move, but by the end of 2021, HBO and Max had 73M global subscribers between them.

Even though he was responsible for the move to shorten the movie window, Kilar still didn’t like the idea of Netflix buying WB.

The Netflix deal for WB is getting a lot of attention this morning. It’s still challenging for many in the business to understand, and the law is likely to change its mind again and again. Come back to Deadline soon for more responses.