Netflix’s $82.7 billion proposal to buy the parts of Warner Bros Discovery that include Hogwarts Legacy creators Avalanche, Lego devs TT Games, Mortal Kombat studio NetherRealm and Batman Arkham outfit Rocksteady has… fallen through.
Rival moneymonster Paramount Skydance has swept in with an even larger bid, submitted 24th February. They’re offering around $111 billion – $31 per share – for the entirety of Warner Bros Discovery, including its linear cable channels.
“That’s a lot of zeros!” I bawl, slamming my face into my eroded laptop keyboard as I contemplate my landlord’s proposal to raise the rent yet again, even though he hasn’t sorted all the mold growing behind the fixed wardrobe. When is somebody going to propose to buy me for a hundred billion dollars??? I’ve still got all my own teeth.
Warner Bros Discovery’s board had previously rejected an all-cash, $30 per share offer from Paramount Skydance for the whole company, but Paramount came back to the table with a higher bid earlier this month.
Netflix have declined to raise their own bid, despite having a few business days left to fight back. As reported by Variety, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was in Washington, D.C. earlier Thursday in an effort to lobby Trump administration officials on the deal.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison and his dad Larry Ellison – who is funding the acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery out of his personal fortune – are themselves prominent supporters of Donald Trump, and have flaunted this connection as reassurance that their acquisition will make it through regulation. There have also been efforts on the US right to portray the Netflix acquisition as a leftwing takeover (Warner own CNN, one of Trump’s favourite bogeymen; Netflix have published ‘progressive’ media like the Obama-backed documentary American Factory).
Naturally, the Democrat opposition in the US view the proposed Paramount-Warner merger with suspicion: as reported by Deadline via PCGamer, Democrat senator and Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee ranking member Cory Booker has invited David Ellison to testify in court.
In backtracking on the merger agreement, Warner Bros Discovery will have to cough up a $2.8 billion termination fee to Netflix, but Paramount have said they’ll cover this – in addition to offering a $7 billion breakup fee in the event that regulators shoot their own acquisition down.
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs in the US,” Netflix’s higher-ups have said in a statement. “But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
Assuming this acquisition goes through, the immediate impact of the merger will likely be felt by TV and film studios working under Warner and Paramount. These are established ‘legacy media’ companies and there’s a lot of overlap, which probably means we can expect layoffs. It’s less clear how Warner’s already much-reduced game division will be impacted.
