The combination of two of the companies leading the charge of licensing IP into immersive entertainment venues would be good news for the LBE industry.
Lots has been written in the media about Netflix’s $82 billion bid for Warner Bros. Most of the narrative is around if they’re overpaying, and how the concentration of power could be anti-competitive, leading to increased prices for consumers. There’s also a narrative that it’s going to be bad for creatives and Hollywood. When a deal like this happens, everyone has an opinion.
I follow Evan Shapiro on LinkedIn, as he seems to be the most tuned in of the media pundits I know. If you’re interested in the media business, he’s worth a follow.
Everyone wants to be in movies. Hollywood studios have been bought and sold for decades. Coca-Cola once owned Columbia Pictures. Now it’s the tech bros that are taking over. Amazon owns MGM. David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry, just acquired Paramount after building Skydance into a power player. Apple has its own studio, not to mention Netflix, Sony, and Comcast (Universal). Tech and media are now fully enmeshed.
But what interests me about the potential combination of Netflix and Warner is the immersive experience angle. I’ve written about Netflix House, the new 100K-square-foot immersive entertainment centers that just opened in Philadelphia and Dallas and will be coming to Vegas. They feature Sandbox VR’s Netflix-licensed experiences: Stranger Things, Squid Games, and Rebel Moon.
Warner has been the most aggressive studio in licensing legacy content for immersive dome experiences. The Matrix, Willy Wonka, and Harry Potter for Cosm, and the Wizard of Oz for the Sphere. Warner is also an investor in Wevr, which had a demo and development stage for their large-scale free-roam experiences on the lot in Burbank, which I got to visit last week to demo their new Little Prince experience, produced in partnership with HTC VIVE.
Greg Lombardo heads up Netflix’s location-based experience group. He’s a smart, strategic, experienced executive with 25 years in LBE, having previously been with Fox, running LBE after a five-year stint as Creative Director for BRC Imagination Arts, working with legend Bob Rogers.
Back in the 1990s, we saw lots of big companies getting into LBE. Dreamworks, led by Steven Spielberg, made an ill-fated attempt. Disney and ESPN both opened large LBE’s that bombed. Blockbuster Video and McDonald’s even took a swing, seeing FECs as a way to leverage their brands and marketing reach. Billions were invested, all of it written off.
But this latest trend feels different to me. Warner Bros is working with Secret Cinema on Cosm and partnering with Google and MSG on Sphere. Netflix has been working with Fever and experimenting with pop-up experiences for almost a decade to learn the business before building the first Netflix House with Gensler, the world’s largest human-centered architectural design firm. These strategic partnerships have been smart, strategic, well-planned, and executed.
The 1980s and 90s saw movie studios launch their own game studios. Lucas, Disney, Warner, and others saw video games as the next medium where fans could connect with the stories and characters they loved. Immersive experiences represent that in the 2020s. I suspect 2026 will feature some big news of classic Hollywood stories being brought to life via location-based virtual reality experiences.
If you’re interested in building in this space, either as an operator, venue, or developer, reach out and let’s chat.
