'Anora' director gets candid about Netflix-WBD deal

As Netflix is set to acquire Warner Bros, Sean Baker, who directed Oscar-winning Anora, shares his thoughts at the Red Sea Film Festival.

He also serves as the international jury head there, where the filmmaker opines that it's too early to judge the deal, but a red line must be drawn on the theatrical window.

“Doesn’t think any of us should be commenting until we all know how [the deal] is going to play out,” he says, adding that "we should not be reducing theatrical windows, we should be expanding [them]."

The theatrical window, Sean points out, is three months. "This is how the filmmaker wants you to see his film, and everybody else can wait for it. My next film, I don’t care what happens, I’m gonna get a hundred-day theatrical window."

He continues, "That’s a little bit over three months, and I think that’s a good place at this moment. When you’re going directly to streaming, it diminishes the importance of a film. The theatrical experience elevates the importance. The way you present it to the world is a very important thing.”

Amid the rise in streaming, particularly in Gen Z, Sean adds a hopeful insight that younger people were the bulk of his movie, Anora.

“In L.A., when I go to movies, it’s usually Gen Z. I love that younger people are seeing the value in a communal experience and also one in which their focus is entirely on the film and not being distracted by everything else in the room," he notes.

It is worth noting that Netflix announced it would buy Warner Bros for nearly $83 billion.