Warner Bros. Discovery Reopens Acquisition Talks With Paramount Skydance Amid Netflix Deal
By HiFi Editorial18 February 2026
Key Highlights
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced it will renegotiate acquisition terms with Paramount Skydance Corporation during a limited seven-day window ending February 23.
The talks follow Paramount’s hostile tender offer for WBD, emerging after Netflix previously agreed to acquire WBD’s studio assets for approximately $72 billion.
A competitive bidding situation developed as Netflix and Paramount repeatedly raised proposed terms, escalating the acquisition battle for WBD’s media and studio businesses.
From a structural standpoint, the reopening of talks highlights how differently Netflix and Paramount Skydance are valuing WBD’s underlying “signal chain.” Netflix’s approach has been narrowly focused on studio assets and IP libraries, effectively isolating the high-SNR components of WBD’s business: premium scripted content, franchises, and production pipelines that can be folded into its existing global streaming infrastructure with minimal impedance mismatch. Paramount’s interest in the entire corporate body suggests a more analog mindset—owning everything from content generation to distribution, even if that means inheriting noisier elements like legacy cable networks and regional operations that require heavier post-processing to extract long-term value.
