Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos made a surprise appearance at a Canal+ 2026 slate showcase in Paris on Tuesday, telling an industry and celebrity audience that the company was committed to theatrical distribution of Warner Bros film in France once its $82.7bn bid goes through.
“Our intentions when we buy Warner Brothers will be to continue to release Warner Brothers studio movies in theatres with the traditional windows,” Sarandos told Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada in an on-stage interview at L’Olympia. “Then those movies would flow through the Canal+ output deal.”
The Netflix executive continued: “I know it’s very important to the people in France and around the world that people have the opportunity to see the films in cinemas, and we intend to support that fully.” He added: “We weren’t in that business before […] We buy Warner Bros. and now we’re in that business […] France is a very complicated place to work, but love is complicated.”
Netflix and Canal+ have had a distribution deal in place since 2019 whereby Canal+ offers Netflix on its platform. Netflix is bidding on the studios and streaming businesses of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and the two companies announced their deal on December 5. The WBD board is currently weighing up a rival bid by Paramount for all of WBD.
Saada described the relationship between Canal+ and Netflix as “80% partners and 20% competitors” and asked Sarandos: “Is the next phase for us to be 20% partners and 80% competitors?”
Sarandos said “the partnership has been and continues to be phenomenal,” and added that “what you see Netflix doing today is what we’re continuing to do”, namely focusing on films and series. He added that “[Netflix] won’t be flipping from 80 to 20 percent anytime soon”.
Saada noted: “Netflix has been very, very good for Canal+. Before you showed up, 30% of French people wanted to pay for television. 70% didn’t want to pay. Now 75% pay. You convinced the French to pay. You doubled the market size in France so thank you for that, Ted.”
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