Hollywood’s old guard was long dismissive of the idea that Netflix could one day upend the establishment entertainment industry. “It’s a little bit like, ‘Is the Albanian army going to take over the world? I don’t think so’,” Jeff Bewkes, the former chief executive of Warner Bros’ parent company, said in 2010.
But on Friday Netflix — launched in the 1990s as a mail-order DVD movie rental service — agreed an $83bn deal to buy Warner Bros, the modern descendant of Bewkes’ company and home to the legendary film studio, closing an improbable arc befitting Hollywood big-screen treatment and cementing the tech industry’s grip on entertainment.
Once again, incumbents across the old entertainment world underestimated the streaming pioneer that has upended their industry over the past two decades. As recently as Monday morning, Polymarket put the chances of Netflix winning Warner Bros at less than 5 per cent.