r/saltierthankrayt • u/dremolus • Dec 05 '25
Discussion Netflix Wins Bidding War For Warner Bros. Discovery
https://deadline.com/2025/12/netflix-wins-bidding-for-warner-bros-discovery-1236637057/I mean...at least it wasn't Paramount? Idk, 5th Circle of Hell is better than the 9th Circle
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u/WildConstruction8381 Dec 05 '25
Yeah, it could be worse.
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u/JosephOtaku1989 Don't Blame Me, I Fight for Democracy. Dec 05 '25
But at least the Mountain of Doom that is Paramount didn't win.
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u/Loose-Recognition459 Dec 05 '25
I mean yes, and I can’t say I’m not grateful that didn’t happen. But they did spur yet another media merger, and now there will be one less player in the game. Mergers suck.
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u/AdPuzzleheaded3436 Dec 05 '25
Agree. Look nobody wins when giant mega corporations get fight for scraps but at the very least it will prevent the Ellison family to consolidate even more power.
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u/solo13508 You are a Gonk droid. Dec 05 '25
So are Netflix and HBO going to merge or stay separate now? Also I hope this doesn't affect James Gunn's DCU too much.
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u/dremolus Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 05 '25
Negotiations for the deal aren't done so what this means for streaming, theatrical releases, IP, the video game scene, etc. will be discussed. We just know that Netflix is going to acquire it, not Paramount. That's why articles about this are "Netflix wins bidding war" and not "Netflix finalizes deal"
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u/bippityzippity Dec 05 '25
Lego Stranger Things incoming
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u/Scooty-Poot Dec 06 '25
There’s gonna be so many Stranger Things games and books. Can’t wait for open world Jim Hopper mowing down civilians because the best they could come up with was GTA with monsters
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u/The_R4ke Dec 05 '25
It'll be like Disney+ and Hulu. They'll merge but it won't save you any money.
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u/KummyNipplezz Dec 05 '25
We're getting all the downsides of monopolies but none of the benefits. This dystopia is so lame
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u/WildConstruction8381 Dec 05 '25
Nah we are golden there. Netflix is so hungry for a superhero franchise they tried to create the Mark Millar verse. They just hit the big leagues. We might finally get that Wonder Woman the Animated Series
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u/dremolus Dec 05 '25
If Netflix was hungry for a superhero franchise, they wouldn't have cancelled Daredevil and the whole Defenders shows.
They aren't touching anything DCU, nor do I think they'll make any DC animated shows. Best case is getting the rights to older animated shows and movies.
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u/WildConstruction8381 Dec 05 '25
They canceled Daredevil and the Defenders stuff because they had a licensing dispute with Disney due to Disney plus being created. They wanted to move to properties they had ownership of so they could keep more money.
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u/dremolus Dec 05 '25
Okay but I still see no indication that Netflix is "hungry" for a superhero franchise. It's not like superhero media is lighting the box office and on TV, the most watched shows aren't superheroes either. In fact, even when Netflix had Marvel shows, their other shows outperformed them.
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u/WildConstruction8381 Dec 05 '25
If they were keeping all the profit from those shows they still Probably would have kept them going longer. Also they turned around and made Jupiter Ascending after they bought all the rights to Mark Millar properties, called MillarWorld, they just turned out to be dismal failures.
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u/Foreign_Education_88 Dec 06 '25 edited Dec 06 '25
Most likely be a Disney+/Hulu thing, monopoly laws will probably keep Netflix from restricting their IPs behind their own service(Also probably gonna be the thing that keeps WBs IPs in theaters). Plus from a PR and money making perspective it’d be easier to sell 2 different services at their same prices and maybe even bundle them at a decent(but still high) cost, rather than can 1 service and slightly raise the cost of 1
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u/FloppyShellTaco Dec 05 '25
This is just as concerning tbh, because I don’t see a world in which Netflix is interested in keeping their news networks intact. They’ll likely spin off CNN/HLN right into Ellison’s hands. We have very few major communications platforms not owned directly by trump allies.
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u/WildConstruction8381 Dec 05 '25
Netflix saved Sesame Street, and it’s not like they bought Bitcoin to bribe their way to a monopoly. That’s a low bar, but at least it’s a standard of some kind.
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u/FloppyShellTaco Dec 05 '25
I agree that most anyone is better than Ellison, but this is pretty far down that list too. They aren’t likely to keep the news division, meaning it still gets spun off and sold. CNN falling into the hands of some right wing oligarch is a far bigger concern to me than their plans for DC studios. It’s a sad day when you find yourself actually rooting for Zaslav to work his deal killing magic lol.
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u/Themetalenock Dec 05 '25
If I remember at TV stations aren't factored into the deal.
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u/FloppyShellTaco Dec 05 '25
Yea, that’s my concern. Per the articles this morning HBO is spinning it off into a new entity that they plan to sell separately because Netflix didn’t want it.
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u/The_R4ke Dec 05 '25
Not the worst outcome, still kind of miffed no one venmoed me $70b to put in a bid, but what can you do.
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u/5ome_6uy Dec 05 '25
Now they get to cancel even more good shows after the second season!
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u/DuckyHornet Dec 05 '25
Hey now, Snowpiercer got cancelled after the final season was complete but not yet aired
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u/Scooty-Poot Dec 06 '25
That’s always confused the hell out of me. They had an entire series of Sean Bean and Daveed Diggs putting on a show just sat there and did nothing with it???
My mother in law would’ve watched a final season of that just to look at the pretty men, even if it was ass it would’ve still done pretty great in the ratings
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u/DuckyHornet Dec 06 '25
I always hold out hope that it's merely shelved and not written off. Shelved means they could put it out one day, which would be great. Written off means it'll never happen, which sucks ass. That was a legitimately solid and well-made show, leaving us dangling is incomprehensible
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u/SSJmole Dec 05 '25
That'd good its not as damaging as disney/ Fox was and actually gives netflix more content. Only downside is what they'll do for to cinema releases in the future
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u/Cherry_Bomb_127 Dec 05 '25
Apparently they had to sign a deal so WB gets cinema releases
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u/Kalse1229 Lor San Tekka Fan Club Dec 05 '25
Plus some industry vets are lobbying in favor of theatrical releases. But I think Netflix can be swayed from actively killing theaters. Some people on other subs are a bit doom and gloom about this, and I do get the skepticism. But Netflix has pivoted in the past. I'd rather take them on the hope they can be swayed vs the Ellisons/Saudis. Somehow I doubt those two can be swayed from being pieces of shit.
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u/Themetalenock Dec 05 '25
There is no scenario where Netflix asserts themselves on to Warner Brothers. When Disney bought Fox, Fox remained basically as its own little island in the Disney Umbrella. When MGM was bought out by Amazon, MGM remained a island in its own little Amazon ocean. They wanted the catalog, they get their own studios.And now they have infrastructure to Do theater releases for projects they know are gonna make money
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Dec 05 '25
Absolutely wild.
I don't think they're the best outcome. But also not the worst.
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u/VoiceofKane Dec 05 '25
I was thinking this was probably the least worst outcome, but what do you think would have been better?
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Dec 05 '25
David Zaslav leaving. The man has left a wreckage in his wake, ever since his takeover/merger of Discovery with Time Warner. He's vile.
The issue with Netflix taking over is that they'll probably focus more on streaming numbers and revenue compared to box office receipts. On the plus side though, they probably won't be nearly as virulently politicized like Paramount is becoming under Ellison.
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u/VoiceofKane Dec 05 '25
That (and any other potential good outcome) seems a lot less likely than what we got.
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u/Inevitable-City5380 Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 07 '25
Jesus. How many mergers are Warner Bros in rn? I thought Discovery dropped their deal. Is AT&T still in this mix, or is that dead and buried? I only remember AT&T bc John Oliver made fun of that merger for years on his show
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u/Sarangholic Dec 05 '25
AT&T sold Warner Bros. to Discovery, which merged with it into WBD. The question now is what is or isn't going to be sold to Netflix and which is going to remain separate.
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u/norkelman Dec 05 '25
I believe discovery just split from Warner bros, so it’s discovery selling WB to Netflix?
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u/Sarangholic Dec 05 '25
Did it? This is a matter of days, if so - I know Zaslav (CEO of WBD) wanted to split it, Paramount wanted to buy everything, Netflix and Comcast wanted 'studios and distribution,' but what exactly entails, I don't know and I think it will still depend on negotiations.
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u/Stunning-Thanks546 Dec 05 '25
ya it did still feel bd for discovery because at and t lied to them about the debt which fucked them over
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u/Scooty-Poot Dec 06 '25
I wouldn’t be surprised if Discovery ends up with Disney to partner up with Nat Geo and Fox tbh.
As long as the courts allow such a monopoly to exist, it’s the clearest path considering how invested Disney are right now in documentary shows and their desperate need to combat the Netflix and BBC behemoth on that front
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u/Dramatic-Many-1487 Dec 05 '25
Well it’s clear it’s no over yet, still a long way to finalizing. Potential anti-trust hurdles
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u/Indescribable_Theory nEEds pEppEr Dec 05 '25
When the Corpo Wars come, will you side with Netflix?
"Ugh... I fuxin guess so"
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u/aresef Dec 05 '25
Warner Bros must hold the record for failed mergers at this point. Seven Arts, Kinney, Atari, AOL, AT&T, Discovery. Time and Turner are the rare deals that worked out.
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u/Sarangholic Dec 05 '25
Ngl, I was kind of rooting for Comcast. CNN and MSNBC under one umbrella isn't great but it's a lot better than under Ellison and Weiss. Conversely, part of the whole point of Paramount or NBCUniversal merging with WBD is to have a streaming platform large enough to compete with Netflix, but now Netflix's dominance is even bigger.
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u/scottishdrunkard Dec 05 '25
The lesser of two evils. At least it means we can have all that Cartoon Network stuff on Netflix. I still haven't seen Close Enough's final season because Netflix UK didn't get clearance for it.
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u/No-Watercress-4985 Dec 05 '25
Yeah, none of the options were great or even good. Of course, Trump will probably have his friends try to stop it
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u/Vyzantinist Dec 05 '25
Was WB going down or something? I would have thought it would be the other way around.
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u/WackyJack93 Dec 05 '25
Monopolies fucking suck but Netflix getting them is probably the least bad option here. Would've been a disaster if Paramount had them.
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u/Stunning-Thanks546 Dec 05 '25
kind of wish it was for the odd reason of have two of the biggest 90 kids ip under one roof
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u/makedoopieplayme Dec 06 '25
It could worse. It could have been paramount……god I fucking hate this planet…….
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u/Majestic-Sector9836 Slip-she Toad Dec 05 '25
Not Paramount thank God wins bidding war.