Entertainment
Netflix drops $83 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, paving way for Paramount Skydance deal
Netflix said on Thursday that it will not match Paramount Skydance’s latest bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing the way for a massive merger that could shake up the entertainment and media industry.
Netflix agreed in December to buy part of Warner Bros. Discovery for $27.75 a share, or $82.7 billion. But Paramount Skydance had made a $30 a share all-cash offer to buy all of the company, and on Tuesday raised its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery to $31 a share (Paramount Skydance owns CBS News.)
Earlier on Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors notified Netflix that Paramount’s $31 per share offer constituted a “superior proposal” for the company.
“The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a statement Thursday. “However, 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.”
Paramount Skydance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Warner Bros. Discovery owns streaming and film studios, along with cable channels including CNN, Food Network, HBO, HGTV, TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies.
The merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery will require approval from federal antitrust enforcers. Paramount Skydance executives have said that combining the companies would benefit consumers and help boost the entertainment industry, which has struggled to recover from the pandemic.
Some entertainment industry groups and lawmakers have raised concerns that uniting two major Hollywood studios could undermine competition.
For its part, Paramount Skydance executives had argued that a union of Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns streaming platform HBO Max, was likely to arouse antitrust objections.
In enhancing its offer this week, Paramount Skydance said it would pay a $7 billion termination fee if its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery collapsed over regulatory concerns.
Actor Val Kilmer died last April, and yet he is starring in a new movie, made after his death. Jo Ling Kent reports on how filmmakers resurrected his voice and image by using artificial intelligence.
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Bryan Cranston has delivered a sharp dig at Shia LaBeouf after his Malcolm in the Middle co-star Frankie Muniz revealed he had been set to star in Holes before dropping out, with Cranston’s advice to LaBeouf cutting right to the point.
In a new Esquire video interview, Muniz, 40, told Cranston he had been attached to play the lead role of Stanley Yelnats in Disney’s 2003 film before a competing offer arrived.
“I was signed to be in the movie Holes, and it was 100% about to start filming and then Cody Banks was greenlit,” he explained.
“They were like, ‘Which one do you want to do?'” Muniz chose Agent Cody Banks, despite pressure from those around him to take the more dramatic role.
LaBeouf stepped in and the rest is history, Holes helped launch his career.
Muniz was reflective about the road not taken.
“I wonder what my career or life would’ve been [had I done Holes instead]. What could’ve come with it? Would I have been taken more seriously as an actor?”
Cranston’s response was instant.
“You could’ve had Shia LaBeouf’s life,” he said with a sarcastic scoff and a whistle, before adding: “Keep that one in. Shia, get some help!”
The comment lands with weight given LaBeouf’s recent history.
Just last month, the actor was arrested in New Orleans after getting into a fight during Mardi Gras. LaBeouf’s troubles predate the New Orleans incident.
He was court-ordered to attend rehab following a 2017 arrest in Georgia for public intoxication, and a lawsuit filed against him by FKA Twigs alleging sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress was settled last July.
Muniz, meanwhile, appears to have made peace with his decision, noting that his path led him back to Malcolm in the Middle and, eventually, a very different kind of life as a NASCAR driver.
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