After months of back-and-forth over who gets to own Warner Bros. Discovery, including the Arkham games, Hogwarts Legacy, HBO, DC, and Harry Potter, Netflix declined to raise its bid and exited the race entirely. Paramount Skydance's $31-per-share offer, a deal worth roughly $111 billion, is now the one the WBD board called "superior," and barring regulatory trouble, David Ellison is about to become one of the most powerful people in entertainment.
For context on how we got here: Netflix announced its original deal in December 2025, offering around $83 billion for WB's film studio, streaming businesses, and games division. Paramount came in hard with a hostile takeover bid days later, went through a lawsuit, a board rejection, and several raised offers before finally getting WBD's attention. Netflix gave Paramount a window to submit a best-and-final offer earlier this month, Paramount did exactly that, and Netflix's co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters decided the math no longer worked. "This transaction was always a 'nice to have' at the right price, not a 'must have' at any price," they wrote. That's a graceful exit line, but it still means Netflix is walking away empty-handed and on the hook for a $2.8 billion termination fee that Paramount has agreed to cover.
What This Means for WB Games
For anyone who plays games, the immediate question is what happens to Warner Bros. Games. The Netflix deal had already drawn attention for reportedly valuing the entire gaming division, the studio behind the Arkham series and Hogwarts Legacy, at essentially nothing. Paramount's offer covers WBD's full portfolio, so WB Games lands in the deal this time. Whether Ellison's Paramount has any real vision for game publishing is a different question entirely, and nobody has answered it yet.
The political dimension here is hard to ignore. Trump-aligned attorneys general had already raised objections to the Netflix deal, and Paramount's path to regulatory approval looks considerably smoother given the Ellison family's well-documented proximity to the current administration. Paramount already paid a $16 million lawsuit settlement to Trump earlier, and David Ellison has reportedly signaled willingness to reshape CNN to suit the administration's preferences. That's the person who will soon own Batman, the DC Universe, and Game of Thrones, assuming shareholders and regulators sign off.
Senate Democrat Cory Booker has already pushed for Paramount CEO David Ellison to appear before the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee. That hearing is scheduled for next week, and it was originally set up to scrutinize the Netflix deal. Now it has a much more interesting subject. Whether Ellison actually shows up will tell you a lot about how confident he is that this deal sails through without serious pushback.
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