Those anxious about monopolisation in Hollywood may want to avert their eyes from this morning’s Golden Globes nominations.
Netflix and Warner Bros dominated the event, accounting for a mighty 35 and 33 nods respectively. In doing so, we were offered a glimpse into a potential NetBros or WarFlix-dominated future.
The two studios between them accounted for a whopping 68 nominations today, with films and shows including frontrunner One Battle After Another, Sinners, K Pop Demon Hunters, Adolescence, The White Lotus and Black Mirror all scoring highly. Sixty-eight nominations equates to 40% of the 170 total nomination slots up for grabs.
Their closest rival in terms of nominations this morning was Universal with 19, or 11.8% of the total nominations.
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In a sign of how present Netflix is in industry minds, the streamer even got a nomination in the Globes’ Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category for K Pop Demon Hunters, a feat that is likely to irk some theatrical distributors given the animated film’s compressed theatrical window and the fact it was made expressly for a streaming platform.
While each awards season is different and distributors’ fortunes rise and fall in any given year, the combined Netflix and Warner Bros would undoubtedly be the mega-presence in most seasons. Last year, the two studios accounted for 33 Golden Globes nominations, which also would have dwarfed rivals in terms of market share.
Friday’s announcement of the Netflix-WB deal provoked anxiety among many. Elizabeth Warren on Friday called the pact an “anti-monopoly nightmare”, while former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar tweeted on the same day: “If I was tasked with doing so, I could not think of a more effective way to reduce competition in Hollywood than selling WBD to Netflix.” One well known producer, speaking to us anonymously, called it “the death of Hollywood”.
Such a deal may still not come to pass. The regulatory hurdles are one thing but Paramount has also just launched a hostile takeover bid. The Ellison’s control of Paramount, WB, CBS, CNN, HBO and potentially TikTok is also concerning to many. Either way, monopolisation is seemingly coming to Hollywood.
