Warner Bros Discovery wants to “identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets”. Basically, it’s up for sale. Just yesterday, I was nattering about the potential sale of Warner Bros Discovery, and the risk of another major Hollywood studio being wiped off the map. We’ve seen this before with Disney’s ... Warner Bros Discovery basically admits it’s up for sale
Warner Bros Discovery wants to “identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets”. Basically, it’s up for sale.
Just yesterday, I was nattering about the potential sale of Warner Bros Discovery, and the risk of another major Hollywood studio being wiped off the map. We’ve seen this before with Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, and now Skydance, fresh from acquiring Paramount Pictures, has reportedly had a second bid for Warners turned down.
In the midst of this, Warner Bros Discovery – headed up by the infamous cultural vandal David Zaslav – has come up with the kind of corporate nuspeak that even an AI slop machine might struggle to bilge out.
The words, in a statement from Zaslav, read “It’s no surprise that the significant value of our portfolio is receiving increased recognition by others in the market.”
And then my favourite bit.
“After receiving interest from multiple parties, we have initiated a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets.”
Or, to put that through a translation tool, ‘we’re interesting in selling’.
This is all happening as Warner Bros Discovery is basically de-merging itself, splitting the Warner Bros and Discovery Global parts of the business back into two. Whether a potential sale ends up being for both parts remains to be seen, but the split certainly gives those circling the company some options.
Of course, caught in the middle of this as usual are thousands of workers who hold no power over what rich people are doing. All anyone can do is wait and see, but it’s telling that it comes in a week when Skydance begins the process of laying off 2000 Paramount staff. 2000 salaries, set to go, just so billionaires can play with their Monopoly money.
Still, back to Warner Bros. It seems an inevitably then that Skydance will land its fish. There aren’t many others with the size and scale to take on huge acquisition of this ilk, and ultimately, Skydance has Larry Ellison levels of money behind it. Perhaps Apple might be tempted to give things a go. But it seems all but certain that by this time next year, Warner Bros will have new owners.
