Despite Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix's announcement that the streaming giant would acquire Warner Bros. Pictures and HBO for a massive $87.2 billion, Paramount Skydance never gave up on its quest to acquire the company.
When Paramount upped its offer last week (in a deal that includes its news and cable TV networks, none of which Netflix wanted), the expectation was that we'd get a fight to see which corporation would ultimately win the day. Instead, Netflix said the asking price was "no longer financially attractive" and immediately walked away from the table.
With that, Paramount's $111 billion megadeal for Warner Bros. Discovery is officially a go. While there are still regulatory hurdles, many of those aren't expected to be an issue given the Ellison family's close relationship with President Donald Trump.
In a new interview with Bloomberg, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has revealed why the company decided against upping its bid and engaging in all-out war with Paramount.
"We had a very tight range that we’d be willing to pay and made that offer back when we closed this deal," he explained. "We hadn’t moved much from that, except for moving to cash, which served to move the deal faster. I’m happy where we got in and happy where we got out."
"We knew right away, when we got the notice on Thursday, that they had a superior offer and the details of that deal. We knew exactly what we were gonna do."
Ultimately, Netflix still wins. The company's stock price has increased in recent days, and Paramount has agreed to pay them a $2.8 billion cancellation fee.
Sharing his take on whether he believes Paramount's merger with WBD should be approved, Sarandos said, "It should be highly scrutinized, the way I’m glad that ours was highly scrutinized. It should be looked at with every bit of the same microscope. Remember, we were asked to go and testify. David and I both were. I came."
Elaborating on his feelings about Paramount's David Ellison, he described the brief battle with him as, "Unusual, yeah, unusual, irrational, whatever words you want to use in that. It’ll be fascinating to see the next steps. I have been on the record a lot in the last two weeks talking about what I think the future looks like."
"I’m confident in our future that we’re not impacted by all that. In fact, maybe it’s to our advantage. But I hope I’m wrong for the sake of the industry," Sarandos noted, sharing his belief that Warner Bros. Pictures may once again be up for grabs somewhere down the line. "Possibly. Or if you look at the history of Warner Bros..."