The media industry is in a state of tumult, and major companies are being bought and reorganized at a rapid pace. Last week, it was reported that David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, wanted to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. This was notable since Ellison, who owns Skydance Media, just recently completed an $8 billion acquisition of another major Hollywood studio, Paramount. Now, there is reportedly another major party interested in buying WB: Netflix.
Dylan Byers, of Puck News, reports that, following the news of Ellison’s interest in the legacy movie studio, a “well-placed Hollywood source called to suggest to me that Netflix was also considering a bid for David Zaslav’s assets.”
Not much information is out there other than this anonymous and “well-placed” tip, although the story does hint that another large company may also have its eye on Warner Bros. Discovery. Byers writes:
NBCUniversal, which is in the worst position to acquire Zaz’s assets from a regulatory perspective, spent the weekend “running the numbers on WBD,” per a source familiar, though a Comcast source cautioned that such a takeover was implausible, especially as it was spinning off Versant.
Gizmodo reached out to Netflix, Warner Bros., and NBCUniversal for comment and will update this story if they respond.
Warner Bros. is obviously a prime piece of entertainment real estate. It’s a legendary film studio that has produced some of the best films of the past century, although lately, the hits are notably less stellar than in, say, the 1970s. During Zaslav’s tenure, the studio has produced some notable winners (Barbie and the Dune sequel spring to mind) and some terrible pieces of crap (Red One and the Joker sequel are just two, off the top of my head). Such is the way of the film industry. I suppose he can brag that, on his way out the door, he helped shepherd to completion Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film epic One Battle After Another, which, if the current reviews are to be believed, may have brought a little bit of that 1970s magic back to WB.
But the studio now lies at a crossroads, and neither path looks particularly good for movie lovers or society at large. In the case of Netflix, it’s unclear what would lie in store for the studio or its filmmakers should such an acquisition move ahead. The fact that Netflix is, you know, a streamer, would seem to portend dark things for them. Re: PTA, I don’t want to see his next film in a commercial-laden format while doing laundry in my living room.
It’s unclear whether the distribution of WB movies would change under a Netflix regime, but if it did, that would royally suck. Also relevant is the fact that Netflix is mostly known for making a whole lot of garbage. Indeed, in this writer’s opinion, their garbage-to-gold ratio has to be somewhere in the region of 100:1. Navigating the untold mountains of crap that populate the platform’s shifting and listless content seas is a truly dispiriting experience, and it is, personally, my least favorite streaming service. There’s also the notorious “Netflix Look,” the streamer’s ugly house visual style that seems to plague most of its original content.
If the studio were to be purchased by Ellison, meanwhile, there are other storm clouds worthy of consideration. Onlookers have noted the visible political undertones of some of the latest corporate moves by Ellison and his clan. Indeed, Ellison’s father, who is also said to be key to the emerging TikTok deal, has been described as a personal “friend” of President Trump, and the New York Times has reported that after Trump’s presidential victory last year, the elder Ellison “appeared at Mar-a-Lago to sit in on a transition meeting.”
The elder Ellison also visited the White House earlier this year as part of the Stargate Project, an AI infrastructure initiative that will be a boon for the data center industry. As such, Ellison Jr.’s recent acquisitions have been characterized as part and parcel of a broader “MAGA makeover” happening within the media industry, the latent implication of which is that American media is about to get a whole lot more conservative. With Paramount under his belt, Ellison’s control of WB would make a huge percentage of Hollywood under the thumb of a guy whose dad is buddies with the president and also the one with the deep pockets.
Ellison may ultimately be the best positioned to acquire it, given his ample resources and his recent history of dealmaking. If that’s the case, we may be in for a whole lot more Top Gun: Maverick-type content soon—that is, glossy, well-produced works of cinematic nationalism that eschew any sort of coherent political statement and play well with the Trump crowd. So, you know, feel free to get excited for that.
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