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Warner Bros. Discovery Sale Draws Netflix, Paramount and Comcast

By  |  November 19, 2025

The pitch sounds like a mismatched blockbuster: “Top Gun Meets Harry Potter.” But as a description of a high-stakes corporate deal rather than a movie, the analogy starts to make sense. Warner Bros. Discovery — parent of Warner Bros. studio, HBO, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, DC Comics, Discovery Channel and more — is officially up for sale, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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    The company, barely three and a half years old in its current form, has launched an auction process with initial, nonbinding offers due Thursday. Paramount Skydance, Netflix and Comcast are all preparing bids, per The Wall Street Journal.

    Each potential buyer has compelling reasons to make a move. Netflix, which The Wall Street Journal notes now dwarfs its streaming rivals in both operating profit and market value, might seem the obvious front-runner. Its market capitalization — close to half a trillion dollars — is larger than the combined worth of its two main competitors in the bidding, plus Disney.

    But analysts say Paramount Skydance may be the more natural match for Warner. Despite holding only about a third of Netflix’s most recently reported cash position, the company benefits from the financial firepower of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whom The Wall Street Journal identifies as effectively the deepest pocket involved in the process. His strong relationship with President Trump also presents a strategic advantage, especially given the administration’s contentious stance toward the media business at large. By contrast, Comcast’s ownership of the newly rebranded MS NOW — formerly MSNBC — could raise political complications if it sought to acquire CNN’s parent.

    Related: Republican Lawmaker Presses Officials Over Netflix Bid for HBO Max

    What all suitors covet is Warner’s vast library of marquee intellectual property. According to The Wall Street Journal, Warner operates one of Hollywood’s largest television production studios and controls several billion-dollar franchises, including the Harry Potter films — one of four Warner series to surpass $5 billion in global receipts, based on data from the industry tracker the Numbers.

    For Paramount, absorbing those brands would be a substantial boost. The studio has lagged behind Warner, Disney and Universal at the domestic box office for much of the past decade. More critically, a combined Paramount-Warner streaming operation would further the industry’s long-anticipated consolidation and create a stronger challenger to today’s dominant platforms. “If you put Paramount and Warner together, you don’t quite get Disney scale, but it’s close enough to that,” Bernstein analyst Laurent Yoon said in an interview.

    Netflix, meanwhile, would face a different challenge. Its longstanding strategy of prioritizing streaming over theatrical releases could complicate the integration of Warner’s film-driven IP, even as its financial strength makes it a formidable bidder.

    With first-round offers imminent and Hollywood’s power structure in flux, the industry is bracing for a transformative deal — one that might bring together unexpected partners but could reshape the entertainment landscape for years to come.

    Source: The Wall Street Journal