It looks like Netflix isn’t acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery after all. Late Thursday afternoon, Warner Bros. Discovery’s board announced that Paramount’s latest, sweetened bid to buy the entire company works out to be “superior” to Netflix’s previous $83 million deal for the purchase of just the streaming, studios, and intellectual property assets. However, while Warner gave Netflix four days to update their own offer, the streamer made their response quickly, throwing in the towel and officially walking away after months of negotiations.
Netflix issued a statement Thursday announcing that the deal is no longer attractive at the price, indicating in their full statement that the deal was a matter of being “‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid,” Netflix said in a statement (via NPR).
While this latest development in the Netflix-Warner Bros.-Paramount saga isn’t exactly the end, it certainly paves the way for this ongoing battle to come to a close. There had previously been some anti-trust related concerns about Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. streaming services, but more significantly, with Warner’s board deeming that Paramount’s proposal is “superior” to the Netflix deal, this largely clears the path for the board to accept it, leading to a termination of the existing merger agreement with Netflix.
On the Hollywood side of things, Netflix exiting the Warner Bros. deal is likely to be met with some relief if not celebration. There had been serious concerns raised about Netflix acquiring Warner Bros, particularly over the impact to the theater industry as Netflix’s Ted Sarandos has been vocal about his feelings that “long, exclusive windows” for theatrical releases were things that they “don’t really think are that consumer friendly,” suggesting that movies would barely be in theaters before going straight to Netflix. There have also been valid concerns raised about the future of physical media, and for franchise fans, the future of the DCU as well.
For now, we will have to wait to see how more news develops about this latest shakeup in the sale of Warner Bros — and what Paramount being the likely victor in this boardroom battle means for entertainment on the whole.
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