Warner Bros. Discovery turns down Paramount’s unwanted buyout offer

Paramounts And Warner Bro

On Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery turned down an unwanted offer from Paramount to buy the company. Paramount made the bid last week to try and beat Netflix, who also wants to buy the Hollywood studio and owner of CNN.

In a statement, Warner Bros. said the terms of the Netflix merger were better, while the Paramount offer “once again fails to address key concerns that we have consistently communicated…throughout our extensive engagement and review of their six previous proposals.”

“We are confident that our merger with Netflix represents superior, more certain value for our shareholders,” it said.

On December 5th, Netflix surprised everyone by announcing a deal to buy the studio for nearly $83 billion. It is the biggest merger in the entertainment world for ten years.

Three days later, Paramount made a better offer. Their boss is David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison (a friend of Donald Trump). Paramount offered to pay $108.4 billion in cash to buy the company.

However, on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery called the Paramount offer risky. They said the money was coming from a "hidden and unclear" trust fund and pointed out that the Ellison family hadn't actually promised to back the deal themselves.

“The value we have secured for shareholders through the Netflix merger is extraordinary by any measure,” it said.

President Donald Trump repeatedly weighed in on the bidding war, saying Netflix’s deal “could be a problem” as it would be left with a huge market share of the film and TV industry.

He later said that he wanted to ensure CNN gets new ownership as part of the Warner Bros. Discovery sale, targeting the news outlet he has long feuded with.

Unlike Netflix’s offer, Paramount’s latest bid included the buyout of cable channels such as CNN, TNT, TBS and Discovery — which would be added to its group of TV assets like CBS, MTV and Comedy Central.

As it looked like Netflix would win the race to buy Warner Bros. — the studio famous for Harry Potter, Friends, and Casablanca — the top bosses in Hollywood started a fierce campaign to stop the deal.

Many in Hollywood see the streaming company as an outsider or an enemy. This is mostly because Netflix doesn't like showing its films in cinemas and has completely changed how the industry usually works.

However, speaking in Paris on Tuesday, Netflix boss Ted Sarandos said that if they do buy the famous studio, they will keep putting Warner Bros. films in cinemas.

“We’re going to continue to operate Warner Bros. studios independently and release the movies traditionally in cinema,” he said, while admitting his past comments on theatrical distribution “now confuse people.”