Netflix Inc. Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos pledged to maintain a 45-day theatrical window for Warner Bros. films during a Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

Sarandos also tried to dampen concerns about potential job losses and U.S. production declines related to the companies’ proposed multibillion-dollar deal.

During a two-hour hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Sarandos told lawmakers the proposed merger would not run afoul of antitrust concerns and would, instead, “strengthen the American entertainment industry.”

About 80% of HBO Max subscribers also have Netflix subscriptions, which he said showed the two services were “complementary.” Netflix also plans to increase its film and television production spending to $26 billion this year, with a majority of that happening in the U.S., he said.

“We are doubling down, even as much of the industry has pulled back,” Sarandos said, according to a written transcript of his opening remarks. “With this deal, we’re going to increase, not reduce, production investments going forward, supported by a stronger combined business and balance sheet.”

Sarandos was joined at the hearing by Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer Bruce Campbell.

When asked by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) whether senators should expect a “round of layoffs” or consumer price increases as a result of the deal, Campbell said no. He pointed to Netflix’s lack of comparable film and TV studios, or the distribution infrastructure that Warner Bros. has.

“We believe, based on our discussions with them in the negotiation process, that they’re not only going to keep those operations intact, in fact, they’re going to invest in those operations and invest in continued production, including on our lots in Burbank and elsewhere,” Campbell said.

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison was also invited to appear as a witness, but declined because he did not believe it would be useful or helpful since the company’s bid for Warner had been rejected, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said during the hearing. Ellison did, however, meet with him and other senators privately to answer questions, Booker said.

Sarandos also tried to assuage concerns about the deal’s potential effect on theatrical distribution.

“I know I’ve earned some skepticism over there over the years on this because I was talking a lot about Netflix’s business model, which was different from that,” he said. “We didn’t own a theatrical distributor before. We do now, and a great one.”

When asked if the 45-day window would be “self-enforced,” Sarandos agreed, saying that was an industry standard. He did, however, note the general caveat that “routinely, movies that underperform, the window moves a little bit” but is still referred to as a 45-day window.

And in a sign of the growing role politics has played in the perception of the deal, Sarandos tried to sidestep questions from Republican senators about perceived “woke” content on the streaming platform, as well as inquiries from Booker about President Trump’s involvement in the merger. Trump previously said he “would be involved” in his administration’s decision to approve any deal.

The hearing comes just two months after Netflix prevailed in a hotly contested bidding war for Warner Bros. The $72-billion deal would dramatically reshape the Hollywood landscape and give the streamer control over Warner Bros.’ storied Burbank film and TV studios, its lot, HBO and HBO Max.

Netflix also agreed to take on more than $10 billion in Warner Bros. debt, pushing the enterprise value of the transaction to $82.7 billion.

But Paramount has continued to pursue the company, fighting to acquire all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its cable networks.

The company, led by Ellison, has made a direct appeal to Warner shareholders to tender their shares in support of a Paramount deal. A deadline for that offer was recently extended to Feb. 20.

Paramount has also filed proxy materials to ask Warner shareholders to reject the Netflix deal at an upcoming shareholders meeting.

Walt Disney Co. selected theme parks chief Josh D’Amaro to be the company’s next chief executive, culminating the most closely watched succession drama in Hollywood.

D’Amaro, who has run the company’s pivotal parks and experiences division for six years, will be charged with steering the Burbank entertainment giant through increasingly turbulent times.

He officially becomes chief executive at the company’s March 18 shareholder meeting — replacing Chief Executive Bob Iger, who will hand over the reins after two decades in the top job revitalizing the company.

Iger will stay on as a senior advisor and board member until his retirement from the company when his contract expires in December.

Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment, was named the company’s president and chief creative officer, becoming the first woman to serve as president at the 102-year-old company. She will report to D’Amaro.

“Josh D’Amaro is an exceptional leader and the right person to become our next CEO,” Iger said in a statement. “He has an instinctive appreciation of the Disney brand, and a deep understanding of what resonates with our audiences, paired with the rigor and attention to detail required to deliver some of our most ambitious projects.”

D’Amaro, who turns 55 this month, is respected on Wall Street and has long been a favorite among legions of Disney superfans who view him as a charismatic cheerleader for Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear and other inhabitants of the Magic Kingdom.

Within Disney, D’Amaro is known for his consensus-building style, his mastery of Disney’s distinct culture and for safeguarding its beloved brands.

D’Amaro, a native of Massachusetts, joined Disney 28 years ago in Anaheim’s Disneyland accounting department and will become the ninth person to lead the company. He steadily rose through the ranks, working in finance, business strategy and marketing and eventually leading Disneyland and then the larger Disney World Resort in Florida.

A big promotion came in early 2020 when he was entrusted with all of the company’s theme parks, cruise lines and its creative cadre of Imagineers.

His portfolio includes video games and consumer products. He’s overseen numerous high-profile construction projects, including Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus at Disneyland as well as the current $60-billion expansion of cruise lines and theme parks, which includes plans for a new venture in Abu Dhabi.

In a statement, Disney’s board noted that D’Amaro currently leads Disney’s largest division, which produced $36 billion in the last fiscal year.

He will oversee all of Disney and its workforce of 230,000 as the entertainment colossus tries to soar in the streaming age amid the erosion of the company’s once-mighty legacy cable TV business and a punishing theatrical business climate.

He also must balance the promise of artificial intelligence without allowing it to destroy the value of Disney’s characters and movie franchises. A further challenge is to help Disney navigate the nation’s divisive political landscape.

Succession planning stretched more than two years.

“All of the directors became very comfortable with Josh’s skills, aptitude and readiness,” Disney board Chair James Gorman said in an interview. “Readiness was key, and that’s why we moved at this time. We were ready, Bob was ready to step aside, and he felt like Josh was ready as well as Dana and the whole team.”

Disney noted the board, in a meeting Monday, unanimously selected D’Amaro as CEO.

“D’Amaro’s most immediate priorities will be managing the Parks business through what continues to be a bumpy economic environment, particularly for non-wealthy consumers,” TD Cowen media analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a research report. He will also be tasked with “maintaining creative momentum in the Studios, both at the box office and on Disney+.”

While D’Amaro “lacks experience on the creative side of the business,” Creutz wrote, the promotion of Walden, who is respected in Hollywood, should fill that gap.

“It will however be critical for the two executives to be able to forge a strong partnership,” Creutz said.

Gorman, in the interview, said having a chief creative officer is new for Disney (Iger has largely filled that role without the title). The elevation expands Walden’s purview over Disney’s movie studios and all streaming service content.

“Dana is a strong leader. She’s decisive. She’s got great creative chops and she’s worked well with Alan Bergman as co-chair of entertainment,” Gorman said. “The idea is to ensure we bring creativity to all parts of the company in all corners of the world.”

After Disney’s March meeting, D’Amaro will join the company’s board.

His pay package will be about $38.5 million, consisting of a $2.5-million base salary, a $26.3-million long-term incentive each fiscal year subject to adjustment for performance or economic conditions and a one-time long-term incentive award of $9.7 million. He’s also eligible for an annual performance-based bonus worth 250% of his base pay, which could work out to about $6.3 million.

“Throughout this search process, Josh has demonstrated a strong vision for the company’s future and a deep understanding of the creative spirit that makes Disney unique in an ever-changing marketplace,” Gorman said. “The Board believes he is exceptionally well prepared to guide this global company forward to serve our consumers around the world and create long-term value for shareholders.”

Disney shares recovered slightly from an earlier slump Tuesday, closing at $104.22. Investors had been rooting for D’Amaro to succeed Iger. He bested three other senior executives for the job: Walden; movie studio head Alan Bergman; and ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro.

Bergman and Pitaro will continue in their “critical leadership roles” and work with D’Amaro and Walden, the company said Tuesday.

D’Amaro’s elevation comes six years after Disney’s disastrous CEO handoff to then-parks chief Bob Chapek, who was D’Amaro’s boss for many years. Chapek was sacked after less than three years in the job — a chaotic period marked by COVID-19 pandemic closures and battles with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, actor Scarlett Johansson and senior Disney executives.

Iger returned in November 2022 to quell concerns among investors and Disney staff. He has spent the last three years putting the Mouse House back in order, cutting costs with thousands of layoffs and planning for Disney’s future. The changes included transitioning ESPN into a stand-alone streaming app, laying the groundwork for the parks expansion, making a $1.5-billion investment in “Fortnite” developer Epic Games to bolster Disney’s video games and preparing for this week’s long-anticipated succession.

“We have done a lot of fixing, but we’ve also put in place a number of opportunities … to essentially expand at every location that we do business and on the high seas,” Iger said on a Monday earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

Succession has been a top priority for Disney’s board since Gorman, former chair and chief executive of investment bank Morgan Stanley, took over in early 2025 as chair of Disney’s board.

Seeking to avoid another blunder, board members formalized the succession planning, establishing a committee led by Gorman, who instituted a more rigorous evaluation. Gorman and other committee members spent time with the CEO candidates to learn their strengths, weaknesses and visions for the future.

The board’s succession committee comprised Gorman, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Lululemon Athletica CEO Calvin McDonald and Sir Jeremy Darroch, the former head of Sky broadcasting in Britain.

Iger spent hours mentoring the various candidates, including during Disney’s crisis last September when ABC briefly suspended late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel over remarks in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Iger helped navigate the conflict amid outrage from political conservatives, President Trump and the chair of the Federal Communications Commission. On the other side, free-speech advocates were furious that Disney appeared to be ready to cut ties with Kimmel to appease the Trump administration.

Instead, Kimmel extended his stay through May 2027.

For D’Amaro, part of the challenge will be living up to the standards set by Iger, who helped the company prosper during his long career.

“Iger was really the visionary deal maker and the global brand quarterback,” said Bill Campbell, head of research for Paragon Intel in Connecticut. “D’Amaro is really the builder-operator who can protect the magic and make the machine more predictable.”

But Iger himself noted that D’Amaro would have to chart a new path.

“In the world that changes as much as it does, in some form or another trying to preserve the status quo is a mistake,” he said in the Monday earnings call. “I’m certain that my successor will not do that.”

Controversial director Brett Ratner, whose documentary “Melania,” about the first lady, premiered last week, found himself in the headlines once again over his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

A photograph, part of the trove of files released Friday in the Department of Justice’s investigation into Epstein, shows Ratner sitting on a couch with his arms wrapped around a woman, whose identity is concealed. She is sitting next to Epstein and a second woman, who is also redacted in the photo and is sitting at the far end of the couch next to the disgraced financier. It is unclear where the photo was taken or when.

The filmmaker is among several prominent individuals from the worlds of entertainment, technology, politics and business — including L.A. Olympics boss Casey Wasserman — who have turned up among the millions of files that the Justice Department has released.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Ratner’s name also surfaces in a number of emails contained in the released files in which Epstein discusses his attempts to connect with the director and descriptions in which their social circles overlap.

It is not the first time Ratner turned up in Epstein’s orbit. In December, his photo appeared in an earlier batch of files the department released.

In the undated photograph, Ratner is seen seated, hugging a shirtless Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and an Epstein associate.

Brunel died of an apparent suicide in 2022 in a French prison while awaiting trial on charges that he had raped a minor.

Ratner has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

A spokesperson for the director did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During a Monday appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Ratner said that the recently released photograph was taken about 20 years ago. He said that the woman he is hugging was his then-fiancée, whom he declined to name, and that she had invited him to an event where the picture was taken.

“I’ve never been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein before that photo and never in contact with him after,” he said on the show.

Among the emails in which Ratner is mentioned, in December 2010, Epstein discusses a dinner he is having at “7:30” in which he says that he has invited Ratner but has not yet heard back.

In December 2010, it was widely reported that Epstein hosted a dinner at his Manhattan townhouse just months after he finished serving a prison sentence and house arrest for soliciting a minor for prostitution. The dinner was attended by a number of boldfaced names including Woody Allen and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew.

A year later, Epstein’s assistant appears to email Ratner saying, “Jeffrey would like to speak with you regarding [redacted] could you please give us a call.” It is unclear whether Ratner followed up.

In another heavily redacted email from 2018, Epstein writes to someone saying: “Hi I’m Jeffrey. brett Ratner thought we should meet.” He follows up with a second email asking whether Ratner had spoken to this person yet.

During the Cannes film festival in 2012, celebrity superpublicist and ubiquitous presence on the awards circuit Peggy Siegal emailed Epstein that she was sitting with Ratner about to watch a Roman Polanski documentary, adding that “Brett says ‘hi’ and he loves you!”

In other gossipy emails Siegal sent to Epstein, she cites Ratner in her listing of which power brokers and celebrities are in attendance at various parties and who is staying on whose yacht in St. Barts (Ratner, she wrote, was staying with his business partner, the Australian billionaire James Packer).

Siegal’s relationship with the convicted pedophile came under renewed scrutiny in 2019 after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges, particularly as she helped facilitate his return to society following his prison sentence.

“Had I known that he had been accused of abusing underage girls, I would not have maintained a friendship with him,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.

Siegal could not be immediately reached for comment.

On Nov. 1, 2017 — the day The Times published its investigation in which six women accused Ratner of sexual misconduct — Epstein emailed lawyer Reid Weingarten: “brett ratner now oy.”

Ratner’s career was derailed nine years ago after The Times published detailed allegations against the director made by multiple women who accused him of harassment, groping and forced oral sex. Actor Olivia Munn claimed that Ratner masturbated in front of her when she delivered a meal to his trailer on the set of the 2004 film “After the Sunset.”

At the time, the director’s attorney Martin Singer rejected the women’s claims, saying that his client “vehemently denies the outrageous derogatory allegations that have been reported about him.”

Ratner’s agents at WME dropped him, as did his publicist, and projects were put on hold. Ratner parted ways with Warner Bros.

“I don’t want to have any possible negative impact to the studio until these personal issues are resolved,” he said in a statement.

In 2020, Ratner became embroiled in another Hollywood sex scandal, involving British actor Charlotte Kirk.

In a sworn court declaration, Kirk said she was victimized by then-Warner Bros. Chief Executive Kevin Tsujihara, Ratner, Packer and Millennium Films CEO Avi Lerner, stating that the men “coerced me into engaging in ‘commercial sex’ for them and their business associates.”

Singer, who represented the men, “categorically and vehemently” denied any wrongdoing on the part of his clients.

“Melania” is the first film Ratner has directed since he was largely exiled from Hollywood. The documentary has received harsh reviews from critics, who have also questioned the $75 million Amazon paid to distribute and market the movie. However, during its opening weekend, it grossed a better-than-expected $7.1 million at the box office.