How fast things change in Trump’s America.
It wasn’t long ago that the Netflix takeover of Warner Bros looked a done deal, bar regulatory approval, after its board accepted an $82.7bn offer in December.
Now Netflix has walked away, declining to match Paramount Skydance’s new $111bn offer because the price has got too high.
“The deal is no longer financially attractive,” it said in a statement – so what happened?
It’s kind of a big deal.
‘David Ellison Scares the S— Out of Me’: How Paramount Beat Out Netflix, Won Warner Bros. and Will Change Hollywood Forever
Ted Sarandos had just wrapped up a White House meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday when Warner Bros. Discovery released a statement announcing that Paramount’s latest bid for the media company was a “superior proposal” to the one that Netflix had offered. With his deal to buy the 100-year-old film and television giant hanging in the balance, Sarandos quickly consulted with a key team of executives, which included CFO Spencer Neumann and his co-CEO Greg Peters, who had been overseeing Netflix’s bid for Warners, sources say.
