Netflix Ignites Warner Bros. Bidding War With Irresistible Offer

So, this escalated fast. Warner Bros. is officially on the block, bids are due Thursday, and Netflix just told the room it’s willing to play nice with theaters if it ends up buying the studio. Yes, that sentence looks weird to me too.

Netflix, suddenly pro-theater (sort of)

Netflix has spent years telling the world the future is streaming, not cinema. Now, with Warner Bros. up for sale, it’s making an exception big enough to park the Batmobile in. The streamer has signaled to Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that it would keep releasing Warner Bros. movies in theaters if it wins the auction, according to Bloomberg.

Per Bloomberg: Netflix told WBD it would keep putting Warner Bros. movies in theaters if it ends up owning the studio.

There’s a practical reason buried in the fine print: some Warner titles are contractually required to hit theaters before streaming. Beyond that industry-nerd detail, this is still a notable shift for Netflix, which doesn’t exactly live in the theatrical ecosystem.

Why Netflix wants Warner Bros. so badly

Short version: the library. Warner Bros. is a once-in-a-century catalog — DC, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, a mountain of classics, and decades of franchises. Owning that vault would supercharge Netflix’s IP bench for, well, a very long time.

Quick refresher on the seller: Warner Bros. Discovery was formed in April 2022, is headquartered in New York, and run by CEO David M. Zaslav. On the streaming side, it operates HBO Max and Discovery+.

Also worth noting: Netflix has the stock muscle to swing big here. Its market cap is north of $470 billion, and Variety frames this as one of the largest acquisitions the company has ever even considered.

If Netflix wins, what happens to theaters?

Near term, Netflix is promising to maintain theatrical runs for Warner Bros. movies. Longer term, there’s an elephant in the multiplex: if the industry’s biggest film supplier gets absorbed by a streamer that’s historically not all-in on theaters, you can imagine what that might mean for the volume of big-screen releases over time.

The bidding field (and who’s backing whom)

• Paramount Skydance Corp: Aggressively pursuing Warner Bros., and per Variety, its offer at one point went as high as $23.50 a share — and still got turned down. The company has since lined up talks with three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds — Saudi Arabia’s PIF, Qatar’s QIA, and Abu Dhabi’s ADIA — according to The Wrap. The CEO also showed up at President Donald Trump’s state dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a bit of optics that, as The Wrap notes, could help smooth regulatory approval under the current administration.
• Comcast: Very much in the mix, but Variety says its softer stock could be a drag on how competitive its bid looks.
• Netflix: The frontrunner on sheer market value and momentum, with that theatrical pledge meant to calm nerves about what happens to Warner’s movies if a streamer takes over.

What’s next and how fast

Bids are due Thursday. The Warner Bros. board is prepping to make a call, and the whole thing could reshape the entertainment business before year’s end. However this lands, it’s not a small story — it’s the kind that redraws org charts, box office calendars, and a few studio lots.