WASHINGTON — Warner Bros. Discovery is switching gears, announcing Thursday that Paramount Skydance’s revised bid tops the one on the table from Netflix.
The move is the latest twist in Hollywood’s biggest auction in years — and five months after Paramount Chairman David Ellison began his dogged pursuit of the larger media company. Netflix now has four business days to regroup and potentially submit a higher offer.
Warner Bros. Discovery said its board, in consultation with its bankers and lawyers, determined Paramount’s most recent offer constitutes a “superior proposal,” compared to the Netflix deal.
Paramount on late Monday bid to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery for $31 a share in cash. Paramount had previously offered $30 a share.
Netflix has offered $27.75 a share — but the streaming giant only wants Warner’s HBO, HBO Max and the Warner Bros. film and television studios in Burbank. Concerns have been growing that Netflix would face push-back from regulators as it seeks to swallow one of Hollywood’s historic film studios behind “Superman,” “Casablanca” and “The Matrix.”
Paramount’s offer includes acquiring Warner’s cable television channels like CNN and HGTV.
“We are pleased WBD’s Board has unanimously affirmed the superior value of our offer, which delivers to WBD shareholders superior value, certainty and speed to closing,” said David Ellison, the chairman and chief executive of Paramount.
The new wrinkle comes as Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos met with White House staffers on Thursday at a pivotal moment for the streaming giant, which has been navigating the high-stakes bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
Sarandos met with White House staff members and Justice Department officials, according to two people familiar with the meeting. The visit was arranged more than two weeks ago and President Trump was not scheduled to attend.
The White House and Netflix declined to comment on the substance of the meeting, but it comes as the media giant has come under pressure by the president to fire board member Susan Rice, a former Biden administration adviser that Trump recently called a “political hack.”
Trump warned that if Netflix did not fire Rice, the company would “pay the consequences.”
The president’s demands to fire Rice marked a shift in the president’s involvement with Netflix’s business as it seek to acquire Warner Bros — a bid that is being countered by Paramount.
In December, Netflix won the bidding for the storied studio and HBO, prompting Paramount executives to launch a multi-pronged strategy to scuttle the Netflix deal.
The Department of Justice has since opened an investigation to determine whether to try to block Netflix’s proposed $82.7-billion deal to take over Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix has more than 300 million subscribers worldwide, and the addition of Warner’s HBO Max would make the streaming giant even more dominant.
Sarandos’ trek to the White House comes as the auction has taken on political dimensions. Paramount has refused to abandon its campaign to buy Warner, which owns HBO and such popular franchises as Harry Potter, Superman and “Game of Thrones.”
Paramount — which is controlled by the family of billionaire Larry Ellison, a Trump friend — has been angling to thwart Netflix.
During a Senate hearing this month, some Republican lawmakers blasted Sarandos, raising questions about potential antitrust concerns and some of Netflix’s programming. Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison declined an invitation to participate in the Feb. 3 hearing.
This week, he was at the Capitol as a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for Trump’s State of the Union address. The two men were pictured giving a thumbs-up in a photo circulating on social media.
Trump has said he would stay out of the Netflix-versus-Paramount battle, but over the weekend he demanded, in a social media post, that Netflix “IMMEDIATELY” fire Rice from its board.
It was not known if the topic of Rice came up Thursday.
Sarandos has sought to downplay the controversy, saying during a BBC interview: “This is a business deal, it’s not a political deal.”
Paramount has enlisted a former Trump administration official, the lawyer Makan Delrahim, who served as Trump’s antitrust chief during the president’s first term.