Netflix has prevailed in its bid to buy Warner Bros., agreeing to pay $72 billion for the Burbank-based Warner Bros. film and television studios, HBO Max and HBO.<\/p>\n
The two companies announced the blockbuster deal early Friday morning. The takeover would give Netflix such beloved characters as Batman, Harry Potter and Fred Flintstone.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mission has always been to entertain the world,\u201d Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said in a statement. \u201cBy combining Warner Bros.\u2019 incredible library of shows and movies \u2014 from timeless classics like \u2018Casablanca\u2019 and \u2018Citizen Kane\u2019 to modern favorites like \u2018Harry Potter\u2019 and \u2018Friends\u2019 \u2014 with our culture-defining titles like \u2018Stranger Things,\u2019 \u2018KPop Demon Hunters\u2019 and \u2018Squid Game,\u2019 we\u2019ll be able to do that even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netflix\u2019s cash and stock transaction is valued at about $27.75 per Warner Bros. Discovery share. Netflix also agreed to take on more than $10 billion in Warner Bros. debt, pushing the deal\u2019s value to $82.7 billion. <\/p>\n
The breakthrough came earlier this week, after the three contenders \u2014 Netflix, Paramount and Comcast \u2014 submitted binding second-round offers. Netflix\u2019s victory was assured by late Thursday, soon after another deadline for last-minute deal sweeteners. Netflix and Warner\u2019s boards separately and unanimously approved the transaction. <\/p>\n
Warner\u2019s cable channels, including CNN, TNT and HGTV, are not included in the deal. They will form a new publicly traded company, Discovery Global, in mid-2026.<\/p>\n
Anti-trust experts anticipate opposition to Netflix\u2019s proposed takeover. Netflix has more than 300 million streaming subscribers worldwide, and with HBO Max, the company\u2019s base would swell to more than 420 million subscribers \u2014 a staggering sum much greater than any of the other premium video-on-demand streaming services.<\/p>\n
In addition, Netflix has long prioritized releasing movies to its streaming platform \u2014 bypassing movie theater chains.<\/p>\n
The deal posed \u201can unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business,\u201d Cinema United, a trade group representing owners of more than 50,000 movie screens, said in a statement announcing its opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe negative impact of this acquisition will impact theatres from the biggest circuits to one-screen independents in small towns in the United States and around the world,\u201d said Cinema United President Michael O\u2019Leary said in a statement. \u201cNetflix\u2019s stated business model does not support theatrical exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netflix, in the statement, said it would maintain Warner Bros. operations, including theatrical releases for Warner Bros. films.<\/p>\n
The Directors Guild of America said the proposed combination \u201craises significant concerns.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cA vibrant, competitive industry \u2014 one that fosters creativity and encourages genuine competition for talent \u2014 is essential to safeguarding the careers and creative rights of directors and their teams,\u201d the DGA spokesperson said. \u201cWe will be meeting with Netflix to outline our concerns and better understand their vision for the future of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Losing the auction is a crushing blow for Paramount\u2019s David Ellison, the 42-year-old tech scion who envisioned building a juggernaut with the two storied movie studios, HBO and two dozen cable channels. <\/p>\n
One month after buying Paramount, he set its sights on Warner Bros., triggering the auction with a series of unsolicited bids in September and early October. <\/p>\n
But Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s board rejected Paramount\u2019s offers as too low. In late October, the board opened the auction up to other bidders.<\/p>\n
Comcast also leaped into the bidding for Warner\u2019s studios, HBO and its streaming service. Comcast wanted to spin off its NBCUniversal media assets and merge them with Warner Bros. to form a new jumbo studio. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netflix has prevailed in its bid to buy Warner Bros., agreeing to pay $72 billion for the Burbank-based…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":426737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[38545,95592,1582,198667,276,18422,638,3853,487,14107,2961,224,5337,3196,4659,88788,15329,11004,198668,1021],"class_list":{"0":"post-426736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-auction","9":"tag-bid","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-cable-channel","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-comcast","14":"tag-company","15":"tag-deal","16":"tag-hbo-max","17":"tag-hollywood","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-movie","22":"tag-netflix","23":"tag-opposition","24":"tag-paramount","25":"tag-statement","26":"tag-television-studio","27":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115667676089889482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}