Paramount Isn’t Letting Netflix Get Warner Bros. Without a Fight

In the wake of Netflix’s shock announcement that it had emerged out of Warner Bros.’ sale season victorious last week, frankly very few people outside of Netflix itself were really happy at the news. Perhaps chief among those detractors was Paramount, after its own bid failed… but they’re not going to let that failure go quietly.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, whose arrival on the Hollywood scene has ruffled feathers ever since Skydance’s $8 billion takeover of Paramount went through earlier this year, confirmed to CNBC this morning that the studio planned to approach Warner Bros.’ investors with a direct bid. Coming in at $30 per share (just over Netflix’s ultimately accepted bid of approximately $28 a share, totaling an almost $83 billion sale), Paramount’s new $108 billion bid, in contrast to Netflix’s, would be for the purchase of the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, rather than just Warner Bros.’ film and TV studios, streaming apparatus, and gaming divisions after its broader split from Discovery.

“We’re really here to finish what we started,†Ellison told CNBC. “We put the company in play.â€

The hostile bid comes in the wake of Paramount publicly criticizing Warner Bros.’ sale process, accusing the studio’s leadership of bias towards Netflix during the process. Paramount Skydance had aggressively pursued an acquisition of Warner Bros. since the studio began floating it was considering a sale earlier this year, emboldened by its own successful merger and its approval by the Trump administration (which itself raised plenty of eyebrows for how much Skydance and Paramount were willing to sweeten the deal for federal approval).

If anything, Ellison has argued that his prior relationship with the Trump administration makes Paramount’s bid even stronger. Ellison noted to CNBC this morning that Paramount had already had “great conversations with the President†about its renewed bid, preparing to make the argument that Paramount’s smaller size in comparison to Netflix would make a potential deal face fewer roadblocks in the path to regulatory approval—especially given the Ellison family’s friendly relationship with Trump, a relationship that isn’t necessarily matched by any of Netflix’s own executive leadership.

President Trump already indicated this past weekend that Netflix and Warner Bros.’ deal could face significant hurdles, telling reporters at the Kennedy Center Sunday night that Netflix’s increased market share in the wake of the merger “could be a problem.â€

“They have a very big market share, and when they have Warner Brothers, you know, that share goes up a lot,†Trump told the press (also via CNBC). “So I don’t know, that’s going to be for some economists to tell.â€

One repeated concern raised about a potential Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. was that it would give the megacorporation, with leadership unabashedly open about its support of President Trump, control of two of the United States’ most prominent and influential newsrooms in CNN and CBS, giving the administration itself a potent level of influence in communicating its agenda to the American public. And that’s even before the fact that, although not quite on the scale of concerns over a potential Netflix takeover, such a deal should raise similar antitrust concerns.

Whether it would, given the aforementioned willingness Ellison and his family have indicated to make overtures to the Trump administration to smooth over any hurdles, remains to be seen. Regardless, the future of Warner Bros.—and with it the broader future of Hollywood as we currently know it—remains in flux.

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