In late 2025, Warner Brothers announced that it was opening a review of strategic alternatives, essentially meaning it was up for sale. On Nov. 20 second round bids were due and on Dec. 5, Netflix won its bid with an $82.7 billion dollar bid for Warner Bros studio and streaming division. On Dec. 8, Paramount entered with a hostile bid with $108.4 billion dollar all cash, for $30 per share compared to $27.75 per share for Netflix. On Dec. 17 and Jan. 7, the WB board rejected two offers from Paramount, and on Jan. 21 the WB shareholders will tender their shares with either Paramount or Netflix.
What makes this relevant is that this deal will further consolidate major Hollywood studios once again, with Disney and 20th Century Fox merging in 2019, WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2022, Amazon and MGM in 2022 and Viacom and CBS in 2019, along with many smaller studios merging, or in the case of Sony, also buying Alamo Drafthouse, a movie theatre chain.
While these mergers and acquisitions should be prevented by antitrust laws, these laws are only as effective as the people enforcing them. As of the last ten years, many have argued this has not been as strong as needed.
Additionally, WB has the fourth largest streaming platform, according to Fortune and controlled 13.7% of the box office in 2024 according to Statista. This, combined with Netflix or Paramount, would simply not be good for Hollywood or the consumer as each of these are about 15-20% as far as streaming control. This merger, no matter what, could lead to inflated streaming prices and more control over the news as WB and Paramount both have media assets such as CNN and CBS, respectively. This means that they would have less say over what makes the cut and how it’s portrayed, which affects the already divisive media landscape.
On top of this, Netflix rarely puts their films in theatres and when they do, it is for a short window with a very limited amount of theatres. This sale would potentially affect box office sales and could have a negative impact on theatres, big and independent, in an already hard decade that has struggled with the rise of streaming and COVID-19. To add to this, Netflix often cancels their underperforming or lower budget shows after 1-3 seasons if they do not become big blockbuster hits such as Stranger Things.
With all of these negatives out of the way, Netflix could be the way to go as they do not want CNN, nor do they own any media companies that deal with journalism, so that could save CNN from Paramount, where it could be in a limbo state. Additionally, with the merger, they would acquire the WB lot which means that they could produce and make more shows and films in house instead of renting their soundstages and backlots from other studios. Furthermore, Netflix has affirmed that they would take WB films to theatres and this could lead to them doing the same with more Netflix films which could have a positive effect on the theatre business. So there could be a few positives with Netflix, should they take over responsibly and use their brains.
With Paramount, they’d be the worse option for reasons stated above and would run the risk of just acquiring another company for their ever growing portfolio, making Netflix the better option here, should the Federal Trade Commission allow it.
