Netflix Drops Warner Bros. Bid, Making Way for Paramount To WinEvolve EditorsFri, February 27, 2026 at 2:28 PM UTC

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The months-long bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery‘s assets has concluded, with Paramount Skydance emerging as the victor of the deal. This was after the latter submitted a superior bid that Netflix declined to counter. Paramount’s victory sparked concerns among many people in the media industry, primarily due to owner David Ellison’s family’s political interests and potential for cost cuts and layoffs.

Paramount leads the Warner Bros. deal battle after Netflix drops

Paramount recently won the bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery after Netflix exited. Once the deal is closed, two major Hollywood studios will unite under one roof. Paramount earlier raised its all-cash bid from $108.4 billion at $30 per share to $110.9 billion at $31 per share, following a series of rejected hostile bids. This was after Netflix granted a seven-day waiver for WB to reopen talks with the mass media/entertainment conglomerate.

WB Discovery viewed Paramount’s new bid as “superior” to the one from Netflix. Later, WB’s board of directors shared that the streaming giant had four days to update its own proposal under the terms of the existing agreement. However, Netflix elected not to match or raise its offer.

The initial agreement between WB Discovery and Netflix in December 2025 involved a cash and stock transaction valued at $27.75 per WBD share with an approximate $82.7 billion total enterprise value (equity value – $72 billion). However, a month later, Netflix amended the $27.75 transaction to an all-cash offer.

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Netflix recently released a statement explaining why it backed out of the deal. It read, “The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval. 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.”

Despite Paramount’s victory, the bid is very likely to face regulatory challenges, including antitrust scrutiny. In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, stressed that the merger was “not a done deal.” He continued, “These two Hollywood titans have not cleared regulatory scrutiny — the California Department of Justice has an open investigation, and we intend to be vigorous in our review.”

Originally reported by Abdul Azim Naushad on Mandatory.

The post Netflix Drops Warner Bros. Bid, Making Way for Paramount To Win appeared first on Reality Tea.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”