Paramount offers $108 billion for Warner Bros, includes WB Games, Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter

In a twist of fate, Paramount Skydance has made a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros, and Paramount may end up becoming the new owner of WB Games.

Paramount offers $108 billion for Warner Bros, includes WB Games, Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter
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Senior Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: Paramount Skydance has made a $108 billion hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros., surpassing Netflix's $82.7 billion offer. The deal includes Warner Bros. Games, controlling major franchises like Mortal Kombat, Batman, and Harry Potter, aiming to enhance consumer value, creative talent, and market competition.

Paramount, not Netflix, could end up becoming the new owner of Warner Bros. video games unit, controlling the gaming fate of iconic franchises like Mortal Kombat, Batman, Harry Potter, and more.

Paramount offers $108 billion for Warner Bros, includes WB Games, Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter 1
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Paramount Skydance today made headlines by offering $108 billion to acquire Warner Bros.. Paramount's hostile takeover bid is an attempt to thwart Netflix's own $82.7 billion offer for WB, and Paramount is prepared to pay a premium of $30 per share to acquire both Warner Bros. studios & streaming and global networks businesses.

The acquisition would include WB Games, the interactive division that handles production of Warner Bros.' iconic video game brands, including decades-old franchises like the fan-favorite LEGO series of games (200 million copies sold), the die-hard Mortal Kombat fighting series (100 million sales), and the breakout hit Hogwarts Legacy (34 million sales).

Paramount has bid six times on Warner Bros, and CEO David Ellison is hoping to make this one stick.

"We're really here to finish what we started," Ellison said in a recent interview with CNBC.

Ellison goes on to give a quick timeline of events and expresses that the deal, which would see Paramount Skydance effectively absorb a significant portion of entertainment media, is pro-consumer:

"On December 1, we made an offer to acquire Warner Bros Discovery to their board, had a conversation with David Zaslav, he came back with a bunch of issues.

"We then on December 4 sent in a bid that addressed every single one of them, that is superior to the bid that they signed up.

"Our offer is $30 a share, all cash, $41 billion in equity that's back-stopped by the Ellison family and Redbird, $54 billion in debt with commitments from Citi, Bank of America, and Apollo. We have faster regulatory certainty to close, and our deal is pro-consumer, it's pro-creative talent, it's pro-competition."