Netflix-Warner Bros

Netflix has struck a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the Hollywood giant behind “Harry Potter” and HBO Max. The $72 billion deal announced Friday would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry. If approved by regulators, the merger would put two of the world’s biggest streaming services under the same ownership — and join Warner’s television and motion picture division, including DC Studios, with Netflix’s vast library and its production arm, which has released popular titles such as “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game.”

Paramount has launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. The effort announced Monday initiates a potentially bruising battle with Netflix to buy the company behind HBO and CNN, along with the power to reshape much of the nation’s entertainment landscape. Emerging just days after Netflix reached a $72 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros., the takeover attempt means Paramount will go straight to Warner shareholders with a bid worth about $77.9 billion, or $30 per share in cash. Unlike Netflix, Paramount is also offering to buy the cable television assets of Warner Bros.

Paramount Skydance says that the Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings withdrew from its bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery to avert a national security review. A revised filing by Paramount with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows the Chinese company dropped its $1 billion financing commitment for the takeover bid due to concern its participation might lead to a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS. The filing said that three Middle Eastern foreign sovereign wealth funds that are part of Paramount's bid gave up their rights to participate in Warner Bros' management to avoid additional scrutiny.