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Forums - Gaming - [Reuters] Netflix to buy Warner Bros Discovery's studios, streaming unit for $72 billion

I guess All Elite Wrestling will have to find a new home. Maybe Amazon will work. I hate these monopolies.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

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Leynos said:

I guess All Elite Wrestling will have to find a new home. Maybe Amazon will work. I hate these monopolies.

IIRC, the sale doesn't include Warner Bros' cable networks. So, they should be fine. That said, your last point stands and I concur.



As a film lover and a WBD shareholder I am disappointed with this acquisition and hope it doesn't go through.

Netflix is out to completely destroy and replace the theatrical moviegoing experience which is near and dear to my heart.

Thankfully Christoper Nolan already jumped ship to Universal, no way he ever works with WB again now.

Normally I don't have faith that Trump's business friendly administration would block this merger, but Trump's buddy and mega donor Larry Ellison is reportedly salty that his company lost out in the bidding war. Maybe he will lobby Trump to stop it. That would be a corrupt turn of events of course. It should be blocked because it is bad for the industry, competition and consumers.

Also David Zazlav is such a snake. He is probably feeling good about himself because this was his plan all along to shape up the company to be acquired. Even though the share price recently doubled nearly all of that is due to speculation about the acquisition. The company was loaded down with debt and he spun off the cable division just to make the film's side balance sheet look cleaner. He is due for another big payday as CEO and a major shareholder and he will have a position at Netflix.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1gWECYYOSo

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Signalstar said:


Normally I don't have faith that Trump's business friendly administration would block this merger, but Trump's buddy and mega donor Larry Ellison is reportedly salty that his company lost out in the bidding war. Maybe he will lobby Trump to stop it. That would be a corrupt turn of events of course. It should be blocked because it is bad for the industry, competition and consumers.


Bad idea. Blocking Netflix would automatically result in Trump basically handing WB over to Ellison. And given the mess the Ellisons have made of Paramount and CBS, that would be a disaster, both artistically and politically. Ellison would cancel South Park, except that Trey and Matt have the best legal team in the entertainment industry and made sure that any attempt Ellison made to fuck them over would be painful. Even so, it's speculated that Ellison is hindering them as much as he can legally get away with. 

Like it or not, a merger is going to happen, and Netflix is the least of the four evils in this scenario (the other three are Ellison, Comcast, and the Saudi PIF). 



Wman1996 said:

This shouldn't be legal.
Also, though this is gaming I'm going to bring up, I wonder if NBC Universal will ever offer to buy Nintendo. I know Nintendo has denied many offers of a buyout. Apparently in 2016 Disney offered to buy Nintendo and Nintendo refused. And famously when Xbox was starting up Nintendo reps reportedly laughed at Microsoft offering to buy Nintendo.

Nintendo is larger than NBC Universal. It's the same size as NBC Universal's parent company, Comcast, and at times throughout the year, it's even been slightly larger than Comcast. If anything, Nintendo could potentially buy Universal from Comcast (they won't do so, of course). 



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Darc Requiem said:
Leynos said:

I guess All Elite Wrestling will have to find a new home. Maybe Amazon will work. I hate these monopolies.

IIRC, the sale doesn't include Warner Bros' cable networks. So, they should be fine. That said, your last point stands and I concur.

Well they are also on HBO Max which is where I watch.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

SanAndreasX said:
Signalstar said:


Normally I don't have faith that Trump's business friendly administration would block this merger, but Trump's buddy and mega donor Larry Ellison is reportedly salty that his company lost out in the bidding war. Maybe he will lobby Trump to stop it. That would be a corrupt turn of events of course. It should be blocked because it is bad for the industry, competition and consumers.


Bad idea. Blocking Netflix would automatically result in Trump basically handing WB over to Ellison. And given the mess the Ellisons have made of Paramount and CBS, that would be a disaster, both artistically and politically. Ellison would cancel South Park, except that Trey and Matt have the best legal team in the entertainment industry and made sure that any attempt Ellison made to fuck them over would be painful. Even so, it's speculated that Ellison is hindering them as much as he can legally get away with. 

Like it or not, a merger is going to happen, and Netflix is the least of the four evils in this scenario (the other three are Ellison, Comcast, and the Saudi PIF). 

I hope that a subsequent Paramount bid would also fail to pass, likely under the next (hopefully Democratic) administration. I don't want WB to be acquired at all. Hollywood consolidation has been terrible for the industry.  The most recent successes I can think of blocked mergers are JetBlue and Spirit and also HarperCollins and Penguin being blocked. We need more blocked mergers.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1gWECYYOSo

Please Watch/Share this video so it gets shown in Hollywood.

Signalstar said:
SanAndreasX said:

Bad idea. Blocking Netflix would automatically result in Trump basically handing WB over to Ellison. And given the mess the Ellisons have made of Paramount and CBS, that would be a disaster, both artistically and politically. Ellison would cancel South Park, except that Trey and Matt have the best legal team in the entertainment industry and made sure that any attempt Ellison made to fuck them over would be painful. Even so, it's speculated that Ellison is hindering them as much as he can legally get away with. 

Like it or not, a merger is going to happen, and Netflix is the least of the four evils in this scenario (the other three are Ellison, Comcast, and the Saudi PIF). 

I hope that a subsequent Paramount bid would also fail to pass, likely under the next (hopefully Democratic) administration. I don't want WB to be acquired at all. Hollywood consolidation has been terrible for the industry.  The most recent successes I can think of blocked mergers are JetBlue and Spirit and also HarperCollins and Penguin being blocked. We need more blocked mergers.

That's not going to happen. If the Trump administration blocked Netflix, they would absolutely fast-track Ellison's takeover of WB to make sure it was completed before the midterms. That's what they did for Paramount, especially after Ellison agreed to fire Stephen Colbert. Anything that helps Trump consolidate his grip on American media will get special attention from the government. And I can easily see Ellison turning Superman and Batman into Homelander (hell, look what MAGA did with Franklin the Turtle!)  and the next Barbie movie under Ellison's watch would have Barbie as a happy tradwife and Ken as a proud MAGA. 

I get it, I'm not happy with the consolidation that has happened in the movie OR the gaming industries. I was quite vocally against Microsoft's acquisitions of Bethesda and ABK, not that my opinion mattered any more than Satya Nadella's morning toilet-time. But these mergers are going to happen, whether we want it or not. Nobody cares what we think. 

Also, part of the reason why WB is in this position is that it is very badly managed under its current leadership. The Looney Tunes, once WB's bread and butter, are pretty much a zombie franchise now in the realm of other legacy IPs like Popeye and Little Orphan Annie. DC has been extremely hit or miss. WB's one resounding success in recent years was a an admittedly good movie based on a doll. And sadly, the Netflix buyout won't get rid of the Zaslav problem, though I would hope that Reed Hastings sees the value in IPs like Looney Tunes and reinstates them on Netflix Kids, maybe.



50/50 on this

On one end there’s a chance legacy shows and movies that WB delisted from hbo max could come back now like their animation stuff

On the other end, Netflix price increase gonna be a lot ugh