Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance leaders spent a busy week in negotiations, and now the WBD board is likely to tell shareholders before the market opens on Tuesday that it is taking the bid under review while still recommending the Netflix transaction that is up for a vote on March 20.
Representatives for WBD and Paramount Skydance declined to comment late Monday. The financial terms of the new offer were not immediately clear.
Monday wrapped a busy seven-day period in which the WBD board sought Netflix’s blessing to engage in discussions with Paramount to “seek clarity” on its “best and final offer.” WBD asked Paramount Skydance “to clarify your proposal, which we understand will include a WBD per share price higher than $31” in a letter from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and board chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr. to Paramount’s board.
If WBD is formally considering the Paramount Skydance offer, the next move in this chess game will come from Netflix: The streamer has four days to match Paramount’s new offer, or it could bail out of the bidding process. A source close to the situation noted that WBD is legally bound to recommend its signed agreement with Netflix, valued at nearly $83 billion. Paramount has fielded a $108 billion offer for the entirety of WBD, including its cable channels. Netflix is buying Warner Bros. and HBO Max.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, in a Feb. 20 interview with Variety, declined to say how the streamer would respond to a higher offer from Paramount. But he did say that Netflix has a “rich history” of being “willing to walk away and let someone else overpay for things.”
Under Netflix’s agreement with WBD, the streamer would buy Warner Bros.’s studios and streaming businesses for $27.75 per share (in all cash, a change Netflix made last month from its previous cash-and-stock offer). WBD shareholders would retain equity in Discovery Global, the company’s proposed spin-off entity housing CNN, TBS and other linear networks as well as Discovery+.
Ellison first approached WBD CEO Zaslav in September 2025, initially offering $19/share for Warner Bros. Discovery. That came just weeks after Ellison’s Skydance Media closed its acquisition of Paramount Global. Paramount’s interest in WBD prompted the board to initiate a formal M&A review process — and the board picked Netflix as the winning bidder. WBD’s board has previously rejected Paramount’s takeover offers nine times.
Paramount’s takeover offer is backed by Larry Ellison (David’s tech-billionaire father) and RedBird Capital Partners. The company has secured debt financing from Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo Global Management. Paramount’s bid also includes capital from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
