The battle for Warner Bros. is not over yet. After Netflix announced on Friday that it would buy the majority of the Warner Bros. entertainment assets, Paramount on Monday announced that it would offer billions more to buy the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery as part of a hostile takeover bid.
Specifically, Paramount is offering $30 per share, compared to $27.75 from Netflix. That works out to $18 billion more in cash than Netflix. Additionally, Paramount wants to buy the entirety of WBD, not just the majority of the key entertainment assets that Netflix is proposing to buy.
Paramount’s $30-per-share offer works out to a total enterprise value of $108.4 billion, which Paramount said is a 139% premium on where the company was trading at in September 2025. The value of Netflix’s offer was $82.7 billion.
Paramount was perceived to be the frontrunner to buy Warner Bros. for months before Netflix swooped in, with CEO Ted Sarandos personally meeting with US President Donald Trump to try to woo him. On Sunday, December 7, Trump said Netflix’s proposal “could be a problem” given the market share such a deal would give Netflix.
Paramount is run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle boss Larry Ellison, and the family also has a close relationship with Trump. Paramount’s new deal to buy Warner Bros. offers “superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion to WBD shareholders,” Paramount said.
The equity to fund the proposed buyout is backstopped by the Ellison family itself, along with RedBird Capital, Bank of America, Citi, and Apollo. Previously, a key concern that emerged in reporting about Paramount’s initial bid was the financial backstop, and Paramount is now saying that’s all cleared up.
Paramount said it’s going directly to WBD shareholders via a hostile bid because the company believes the shareholders “were not presented [with the] most compelling and superior transaction.”
“[The] Netflix transaction provides WBD shareholders with inferior and uncertain value, a protracted and uncertain multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearance process, a complex and volatile mix of equity and cash, and ownership of Global Networks as a standalone overleveraged company whose future trading value is uncertain,” Paramount said.
David Ellison said in a statement that WBD’s shareholders “deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company.”
He added: “We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood. It is in the best interests of the creative community, consumers and the movie theater industry. We believe they will benefit from the enhanced competition, higher content spend and theatrical release output, and a greater number of movies in theaters as a result of our proposed transaction. We look forward to working to expeditiously deliver this opportunity so that all stakeholders can begin to capitalize on the benefits of the combined company.”
Paramount’s hostile bid for WBD will expire on January 8, 2026, unless it’s extended before then.
The deal could impact video games. WBD owns a variety of gaming studios with its WB Games division, and you can see in the gallery below all the franchises the company’s new owner may own if a deal materializes. Additionally, Paramount is making a Call of Duty movie with Activision.
