NEW YORK (AP) — Netflix is declining to raise its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business, in a stunning move that effectively puts Paramount in a position to take over the fellow storied Hollywood giant.
On Thursday, after Warner’s board announced that Skydance-owned Paramount’s offer was superior to the agreement it had previously struck with Netflix, the streaming giant said the new price that would be required to buy Warner would make it a deal that is “no longer financially attractive.”
Unlike Netflix’s bid, Paramount wants all of Warner’s operations, including networks like CNN and Discovery. That would put CNN under the same roof as Paramount’s CBS and combine two of Hollywood’s last five remaining studios.
The owner of HBO Max, DC Studios and popular titles like “Harry Potter” had backed Netflix’s proposal for months. But after Skydance-owned Paramount upped its rival bid for the entire company to $31 per share, in addition to other revisions, Warner’s board on Thursday said that the offer “constitutes a ‘company superior proposal.’”
A Paramount buyout Warner’s business would vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape. Paramount’s CBS has seen significant editorial shifts, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss at CBS News, under new Skydance ownership. And if Paramount’s acquisition of Warner is successful, many expect the reach of those changes to only grow.
