Angst turns to anger in Hollywood as Netflix hooks Warner Bros

In October, when Warner Bros.

- BROOKS BARNES & SHAWN HUBLER

Discovery hung a “For Sale” sign on itself, Hollywood was sad.The megaproducer Larry Gordon likened the feeling to a death in the family. In group WhatsApp chats, screenwriters used words like “heartbreaking” and “tragic.”

Now that a sale has been announced, with Netflix striking an $83 billion deal for the Warner Bros. studio and its sibling streaming service, HBO Max, a different emotion is washing through the entertainment capital: Hollywood is mad.

Jane Fonda raged against the deal in a letter to an entertainment trade publication, calling the end of a standalone Warner Bros. “an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves and — potentially — the First Amendment itself.”

Michael O'Leary, CEO Cinema United, a trade group representing 30,000 movie screens in the United States, called the Netflix acquisition “an unprecedented threat” and vowed to fight it. “The aters will close, communities will suffer, jobs will be lost,” O'Leary said, pointing to Netflix’s practice of granting films only “token” theatrical releases. Shares in theater chains including AMC Entertainment, IMAX and Cinemark fell as much as 8 percent on Friday.