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Paramount Skydance Prepares Bid for Warner Brothers
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September 12, 2025
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1:01
3:53Now PlayingParamount Skydance Corp., the Hollywood studio taken over in August by independent filmmaker David Ellison, is preparing a bid for rival Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.
While Paramount is working on an offer with an investment bank, no talks with Warner Bros. have been held, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the deliberations are private.
Warner Bros. said in June it plans to split into two businesses, one focused on cable TV and the other on streaming and studios. The mostly cash offer will be for the entire company, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday, without providing terms.
The Paramount offer is being backed by the Ellison family, the newspaper reported. David Ellison’s father is Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle Corp. and the world’s second-richest person, with a fortune valued at $383 billion.
Paramount declined to comment. Warner Bros. didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Warner Bros. Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav believes he can get a hefty premium for his streaming and studios businesses once they’re separated from the debt-laden cable networks, people familiar with the matter said. To clinch a deal, Ellison will have to convince him that he isn’t leaving money on the table by selling out before that happens.
In addition to film and TV studios, Paramount owns a stable of cable and broadcast properties, including CBS and MTV, and the Paramount+ streaming service. Warner Bros., also a film and TV producer, likewise operates TV channels including CNN and HBO, as well as the HBO Max streaming business.
Shares of Warner Bros. rose 29% to $16.15 at the close in New York, giving the stock a market value of $40 billion. Including net debt, the company has an enterprise value of about $71 billion. Revenue in the past 12 months totaled $38.4 billion.
Paramount gained 16% to $17.46, giving the company a market value of more than $19 billion. It has net debt estimated at $11.6 billion, according to Bloomberg data, while sales over the past year totaled $28.8 billion.
A merger would shrink the number of legacy media studios to four from five and mark the biggest consolidation in Hollywood since Walt Disney Co. bought the entertainment operations of Fox Corp. for $71 billion in 2019.
It would combine companies with some of the most recognizable movies and TV shows and give Paramount two giant studio lots in Southern California.
Paramount is the producer of the Mission: Impossible films and The Godfather saga, along with the popular Yellowstone series on TV today, while Warner Bros.’ catalog spans classics like the Harry Potter movies, Batman and Casablanca, as well as HBO’s The Sopranos.
Major US media companies including Warner Bros. and Comcast Corp., the parent of NBCUniversal, have been restructuring their film and TV businesses with paid streaming at the center of their plans.
They’ve been forced to do so by the loss of pay-TV subscribers and advertisers to streaming companies like Netflix Inc. and Google’s YouTube, along with declining or stagnant theater attendance.
Their efforts have been complicated by pressure from investors to achieve profitability in streaming, leading to production cutbacks and job losses in the thousands. Recent financial results have also been hurt by strikes in the past couple years that shut down production for months.
Comcast, one of the largest cable-TV and broadband providers, announced plans to divest networks including MSNBC, USA and CNBC. It expects to complete the spinoff of the newly named Versant Media Group by the end of this year.
Bloomberg's Geetha Ranganathan reports.
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