Paramount Skydance is likely to acquire Warner Bros, after Netflix has dropped its bid to buy the studio. After months of counter-offers from Paramount, Netflix has now dropped out of its bid to acquire Warner Bros. The announcement comes two days after Paramount upped its previous offer to $31 per share – Netflix’s bid, which ... Netflix drops Warner Bros bid, Paramount on course to acquire the studio
Paramount Skydance is likely to acquire Warner Bros, after Netflix has dropped its bid to buy the studio.
After months of counter-offers from Paramount, Netflix has now dropped out of its bid to acquire Warner Bros.
The announcement comes two days after Paramount upped its previous offer to $31 per share – Netflix’s bid, which had already been accepted by Warner Bros last year, amounted to $27.75 per share.
Netflix had another couple of days to come up with a counter offer, but has instead decided to scrap the deal altogether, stating that it was “no longer financially attractive.”
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands,” Netflix’s bosses Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a statement, “and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs in the U.S. But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
It’s an abrupt turn of events, given that Netflix looked on course to acquire the studio until the past few days. Warner Bros’ board had already agreed to Netflix’s $82bn offer in December 2025, and barring approval from regulators, that appeared to be it. But then Paramount, flush with cash from its recent acquisition by Skydance, rode in with an offer of $108.4bn.
Initially, Warner Bros waved off Paramount’s overtures, citing potential downsides beyond the promise of extra money. But the few months have seen increasing signs that President Trump and several of his Republican supporters could make the approval of a Netflix-Warner deal difficult. Trump himself has said that the Netflix deal “could be a problem,” and has recently tried to get a Netflix board member fired.
Only a day ago, several Republican attorneys had also requested that the Department of Justice block Netflix’s buyout attempt.
Not that any of this is about unfair competition or fears of monopolies. Rather, Paramount Skydance boss David Ellison is the father of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, the latter a long-time supporter of Trump. (David Ellison attended Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this week.)
The Federal Trade Commission, under the eye of Trump, waved through Skydance’s multi-billion purchase of Paramount last year. It will likely approve Paramount Skydance’s Netflix deal.
This leaves Warner Bros, and the vast suite of cable networks under its banner – including one of the US’s biggest news channels, CNN – under the control of Paramount and its right-leaning owners.
With each of these deals, the world’s biggest companies and media outlets are being left in control of an ever small club of billionaires.
To quote author and Berkeley professor Robert Reich earlier today:
“The richest man owns X. The second and third richest men control Google. The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. The Fifth richest man owns The Washington Post. And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros.
See the problem here?”
