The public’s selfish demand for a competitive media landscape is actively harming the executives who are bravely trying to transition us to a post-art entertainment slurry.
Last Thursday, while picking at a $68 endive salad at the San Vicente Bungalows with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav—a dear friend, though I pride myself on maintaining absolute journalistic objectivity—I was struck by a profound realization. The American public is simply too selfish to understand the sheer, agonizing difficulty of operating a multi-billion-dollar entertainment monopoly in the year 2024.
Everywhere I look, from the tedious scolding of the Federal Trade Commission to the ceaseless whining of the so-called "creative class" on social media, I see people actively trying to stop the impending merger of Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery. They claim combining these historic studios will create an anti-competitive behemoth. They lament the inevitable thousands of layoffs. They scream that executives will immediately feed the entire Paramount archive into an industrial shredder to save thirty-four dollars in server maintenance fees.
To which I must gently ask: Have we entirely lost our capacity for empathy?
Competition is exhausting. It forces studios to continually gamble hundreds of millions of dollars on "new ideas" and "talented filmmakers" in a desperate bid to win over subscribers. This completely unsustainable model places an immense psychological burden on our nation’s top executives, who are forced to occasionally pretend they care about the artistic merits of a picture rather than its immediate viability as a tax write-off.
If we allow Warner Bros. and Paramount to merge, we can finally free these brave men from the indignity of making things.
Consider the sheer beauty of the proposed corporate synergy. Right now, if I want to watch a breathtaking piece of cinema be unceremoniously ripped from a streaming platform forever, I have to guess whether it will happen on Max or Paramount+. By combining the two, we consolidate the destruction of the Western canon under one roof. It is a streamlined, frictionless experience for the modern consumer.
Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to evaluate a finished, critically acclaimed motion picture and correctly calculate that it is worth marginally more to us as a tax write-off? It is grueling emotional labor. And yet the public treats us like villains just because we want to merge with Paramount and do it to the Mission: Impossible franchise.
Hunter is absolutely right, and frankly, the lack of gratitude from the viewing public is appalling. When Warner Bros. shelved Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme for tax purposes, they weren't destroying art; they were elevating the financial spreadsheet to a higher plane of creative expression. Why are we denying them the opportunity to do the same to Top Gun: Maverick or the Star Trek franchise?
Furthermore, the sheer logistics of the current Hollywood landscape are untenable for the people who actually matter. Over the holidays, I was forced to attend three separate studio mixers in a single week. Do you know the toll it takes on a person’s spirit to make small talk with three different slates of Vice Presidents of Content Monetization? A consolidated Warner-Paramount entity would drastically reduce the number of identical polo-shirt-wearing men I am required to smile at during Sundance. For that alone, the Department of Justice must let this deal proceed.
And what of the consumer? The naysayers argue that a merger would lead to price hikes and a worse product. But I, for one, am tired of the paralyzing burden of choice. When I log onto my television, I do not want to be confronted with a vast, intimidating library of classic film and prestige television. I want to pay forty-five dollars a month for a single, monolithic app that crashes upon opening, features a user interface designed by a hostile artificial intelligence, and prominently suggests I watch a reality show about people getting married in the dark.
We must stop clinging to the outdated notion that movies and television are supposed to be "good" or "available to watch." Cinema had a wonderful run, but it is time to politely step aside and let the adult executives in the room get back to the serious business of leveraging intellectual property to service corporate debt.
If we are lucky, in ten years, there won't be any movies left at all. Just one beautiful, continuous stream of Guy Fieri touring the empty soundstages where art used to happen. And honestly? I think we will all be better off.