To say that this has been a week of change, loss and upheaval at WarnerMedia would be a dramatic understatement. With its large product push DC FanDome just ten days away, DC Comics, DC Universe, and other areas of the multimedia company saw fires and restructuring as the company looked to reduce its debt burden and move the majority of its resources to streaming service HBO Max. There, The Hollywood Reporter reports that WarnerMedia chief Jason Kilar is looking to sell anime streaming service Crunchyroll as part of a move to sell all non-core assets for the company’s new business goals. “It became quite clear that we need to have one content organization to make it easier for decisions to greenlight the best possible stories that we can then take more and more directly to consumers,” Kilar said in a recent THR interviewer.
While it is no surprise that Crunchyroll wants to have suitors who dare to bring the service under their umbrella, one of the names that is rumored to be of interest raises the “uh-oh” levels of this conversation to a ten: Sony, the current owner of anime company Funimation. One reported costly obstacle to a deal with Sony is Sony’s offering, which is reportedly less than the $ 1.5 billion price WarnerMedia wants for the service (and its 3+ million subscribers). To say that the anime landscape would change dramatically with a Funimation / Crunchyroll merger if collaboration is far from an understatement, and would definitely be seen as an immediate challenge for Netflix, as it looks to increase its anime library , as well as the original content. Currently, Crunchyroll has a programming “tile” on HBO Max, with a small, cramped library of anime content, while also maintaining itself as a standalone subscription service. At the time of reporting, both WarnerMedia division Otter Media and Sony declined to comment.
