Streaming behemoth Netflix has made a largely cash offer to buy TV and film business Warner Bros Discovery as the storied yet debt-laden Hollywood studio presses forward with a sale that may change the US media landscape, a report stated Monday.
According to Bloomberg, Netflix joined Paramount Skydance and Comcast, the owner of NBCUniversal, in a second round of an auction that was being conducted throughout the US Thanksgiving break.
The parent company of HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros film studio officially put itself up for sale in October after receiving multiple unsolicited offers, setting aside a planned split into two separate entities – one focused on streaming and studios, the other on traditional cable networks.
Warner Bros Discovery was originally targeted by Paramount — recently acquired by the billionaire tech family of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men.
His son David Ellison, a movie producer, is the Paramount CEO and had made three consecutive offers for the entertainment group before Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav launched the official sale process.
Netflix, the world’s largest streaming service with over 280 million subscribers globally, is working on a bridge loan totaling tens of billions of dollars to finance its potential acquisition, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.
The deal would bulk up Netflix’s already considerable content production capabilities and secure premium assets like HBO and Warner Bros studios.
It would also likely face close scrutiny by antitrust authorities in the United States and potentially in other major markets.
Top Hollywood players have voiced their preference to see Warner Bros not end up in the hands of Netflix, citing concerns that the streaming company largely seeks to limit theatrical releases of its film productions.
“Titanic” director James Cameron told podcast “The Town” recently that a takeover of Warner Bros by Netflix would be “a disaster.”
Requests for comment to Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery were not answered at time of publication.
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