Paramount has launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery, going directly to shareholders with an offer worth about $74.4 billion in cash and openly challenging Netflix’s existing takeover agreement.
According to the bid documents, Paramount is offering $30 per Warner share and, unlike Netflix, is also seeking to buy the company’s cable networks, while urging investors to reject the rival $72 billion offer.
How Paramount’s hostile offer works
According to reports, Paramount says its proposal is worth roughly $18 billion more than Netflix’s, arguing that the competing offer relies on what it calls an “illusory prospective valuation” of Warner’s cable assets.
The company says it has already submitted six proposals to Warner Bros Discovery over 12 weeks and is now turning to a tender offer that will run until 8 January 2026, unless extended.
Why Paramount says its bid is better
Paramount argues that its all-cash structure and inclusion of cable assets would create a cleaner transaction and a stronger combined studio.
Chair and CEO David Ellison said the deal would be “in the best interests of the creative community, consumers and the movie theater industry”, promising more competition, higher content spending and more films in cinemas if the takeover succeeds.
The company also criticises Netflix’s offer as exposing Warner investors to a drawn-out, multi-country regulatory process and what it calls a complex, volatile mix of equity and cash.
Inside Netflix’s existing deal with Warner Bros Discovery
Netflix reached a cash-and-stock agreement only days earlier to acquire Warner’s studio and streaming business, including Warner Bros Pictures, HBO and HBO Max, in a transaction that values the group at about $82.7 billion including debt.
That deal excludes Warner’s cable operations, such as CNN and Discovery, which are meant to be separated into a different entity before closing.
Regulators in several jurisdictions still have to sign off on any Netflix–Warner combination.
Politics and regulatory pressure around the deal
US President Donald Trump has already warned that Netflix’s takeover “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined company and has said he intends to be involved in the government’s decision on whether to approve it.
Analysts note that Paramount’s bid could benefit from those political headwinds.
Wichita State University professor Usha Haley told AP that Trump’s comments should be taken “at face value”, pointing to Paramount CEO David Ellison’s family ties to major Trump supporter Larry Ellison.
What the takeover fight means for Hollywood
Both bids would reshape Hollywood’s power balance, combining a major legacy studio with either Netflix’s global streaming platform or Paramount’s film, TV and news assets, including CBS and newly acquired conservative-leaning outlet The Free Press, whose founder Bari Weiss was recently installed as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
In the short term, Warner Bros Discovery shareholders must decide whether to tender their stock into Paramount’s higher hostile offer or back the board-approved Netflix deal and wait for regulators.
With all sides now publicly locked into competing visions for the industry’s future, the Paramount Warner Bros Discovery takeover battle is set to dominate media and antitrust debates well into 2026.
