{"id":528855,"date":"2026-01-20T02:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/528855\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T02:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:53:12","slug":"the-fight-for-warner-bros-is-paramounts-most-embarrassing-moment-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/528855\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fight for Warner Bros. Is Paramount’s Most Embarrassing Moment Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since Disney got the green light to acquire Fox<\/a>, every corporation\u2019s decided it\u2019d like to do the same thing. What was once a thing that frankly shouldn\u2019t have happened and hasn\u2019t tangibly benefitted anyone beyond letting folks say \u201c[x IP] is awesome again<\/a>!\u201d and \u201cWolverine can fight the Hulk!\u201d is now just an average part of our day as corps keep trying to out-acquire one another and turn themselves into empires<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Warner Bros. is the latest company under threat of acquisition<\/a>, with Netflix and Paramount both trying to be the next owner of Batman and Game of Thrones. At first, it seemed Netflix would easily bring another addition to its (mostly) anti-theatrical stable<\/a>, but Paramount (which merged with Skydance just last year) just won\u2019t have it<\/a>. Current CEO David Ellison has complained, cried foul, and more recently filed a lawsuit<\/a> as a means of blocking the deal WB\u2019s shareholders already approved. At time of writing, a judge ruled that the Transformers\u00a0studio hasn\u2019t \u201cidentified [or suffered] any cognizable, irreparable harm<\/a>\u201d from the deal to come and therefore can\u2019t fast track said suit as WB continues finalizing its deal with Netflix. He\u2019s not giving up, though, as he\u2019s now looking to rally European support<\/a> to continue his efforts.<\/p>\n

For those not keeping track at home, Ellison\u2019s tried at least a dozen times now (again, at the time of writing) to convince Warner Bros.\u2019 shareholders to let Paramount be the one to acquire it. And each time, those shareholders have told him in no uncertain terms their eyes are on Netflix and his offers are no good. Whether that\u2019s the actual reason or there\u2019s some lingering beef from last year\u2019s war over South Park\u00a0streaming rights<\/a>, getting WB has become Ellison\u2019s white whale, his hill to die on in the hopes of gaining near-total control over middle America on the entertainment and news level.<\/p>\n

Ellison is clearly not above using his family connections and ameliorating federal interest to get the deals he wants\u2014that\u2019s already been cause for concern in how Paramount\u2019s been going; it\u2019s understandable there are corners of Hollywood that fear the same is happening with his desperation for WB. More than the unrestricted access to hundreds of IPs, new and old, he wants CNN<\/a> as a means of making himself look worthwhile to U.S. president Trump and twisting another legacy news outlet into a vessel for ego stroking and appeasement.<\/p>\n

In a just, better world, Warner Bros. would look at its successful run of films in 2025 and declare itself not for sale at all, actually. After five years of being jerked around<\/a> by different parent companies and rebranding itself 80 times, it certainly could\u2019ve used the back half of the 2020s using that momentum to get back to what it does best. There is no legitimate reason for either Paramount or Netflix to own it; monopolies are bad, corporate interference is worse, and like many studios, WB has been at its best when it gets out of its own way.<\/p>\n

Instead, we\u2019re all forced to watch a man with more money than he needs and who owns one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest studios fail to repeat his \u201csuccess.\u201d This is all so many things at once: it\u2019s predictable (and scary) that Ellison\u2019s looking to make his mark on the world just by buying as much of the entertainment industry as possible, just as it\u2019s darkly hilarious that he\u2019s managed to torch CBS News<\/a> and 60 Minutes<\/a> but can\u2019t seal the deal here. Were this a recurring gag on a season of TV like The Studio\u00a0or\u00a030 Rock,\u00a0it might be an entertaining one to watch him get slapped down each time he goes to WB\u2019s shareholders.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t a TV show; it\u2019s real life, and it\u2019s just dumb that this is all happening. Corporate acquisitions have always been bad, and since the Disney-Fox merger, they\u2019ve become a spectacle unto themselves, from announcing that discussions have been had to the eye-rollingly cringe celebratory video<\/a> when the deal is completed. By now, we know there\u2019s no real \u201cmagic\u201d to come out of these, just layoffs and exhaustion. Whoever ultimately gets Warner Bros., Paramount\u2019s dogged pursuit of the studio makes all this more exhausting than usual\u2014and unfortunately, it\u2019s likely to inspire other corps to not take multiple \u201cno\u2019s\u201d for an answer.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since Disney got the green light to acquire Fox, every corporation\u2019s decided it\u2019d like to do the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":528856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,4659,15329,67,132,68,1021],"class_list":{"0":"post-528855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-netflix","10":"tag-paramount","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115925169094220181","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528855","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=528855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}