Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos Sounds Uninterested In Acquiring Warner Bros., Despite Renewed Fervor To See The Snyderverse Revived There
Let the bidding begin! Paramount-Skydance made two offers to buy Warner Bros., but CEO David Zaslav rejected them both. Normally, that would mean a company is not interested in selling, and rumors of turmoil are greatly exaggerated. However, it’s modern Hollywood we’re dealing with, and it’s starting to look more and more every day like Zaslav is weighing his options.
The idea that WB was for sale came across as ridiculous to some onlookers, but now even mainstream trades are noticing something is up in the vicinity of the old water tower. Per The Hollywood Reporter, WB and Zaslav are acknowledging the interest from multiple parties, and the board of directors “has initiated a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.”
All transactions, or “Strategic options,” are on the table, including a play for the whole company, a separate sale for Warner Bros., and Discovery Global after they split, and even “an alternative separation structure that would enable a merger of Warner Bros. and spin-off of Discovery Global to our shareholders.”
Said Zaslav in a statement, “We continue to make important strides to position our business to succeed in today’s evolving media landscape by advancing our strategic initiatives, returning our studios to industry leadership, and scaling HBO Max globally.”
He continued, “We took the bold step of preparing to separate the Company into two distinct, leading media companies, Warner Bros. and Discovery Global, because we strongly believed this was the best path forward,” adding, “It’s no surprise that the significant value of our portfolio is receiving increased recognition by others in the market.”
Zaslav’s statement finishes, rather tellingly, with, “After receiving interest from multiple parties, we have initiated a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets.” Some folks in unexpected places think “the best path forward” is selling to Netflix, a desire that first arose when social media was at its most hopeful that the Snyderverse could be brought back.
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Justice League’s Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello showed his support for this possibility in a repost riding the wave of Zack Snyder’s walk down memory lane. The director, who recently joined Instagram, made his presence on the platform felt in a big way by sharing photos of Henry Cavill as Superman, Ben Affleck as Batman, and Manganiello as Slade Wilson from their days working on JL and Batman v Superman.
Manganiello reposted an AI video rendering him as Knightmare Slade, generated by the X account RawkTalks. The account shared the video while quoting a post by YouTuber Tyrone Magnus about Snyder’s posting spree. The quote post also tagged the actor, Netflix, and “#SellWBtoNetflix.” The video concludes with a shot of the water tower, accompanied by the same hashtag underneath it.
This repost is being looked upon as tacit support for a revived Snyderverse and tacit disapproval of James Gunn’s DCU by Manganiello. However, he has been sharing Deathstroke and Snyderverse imagery with similar tags on his X page for years. One such case in point, which is an image reshared recently by Snyder, can be found below.
They may be trying to keep hope for a restored Snyderverse alive or maybe they were just feeling nostalgic. Either way, Netflix’s actual interest in anything DC or WB is a lingering question. The streaming giant’s name is routinely thrown out there as one of the interested parties, but the reality internally might put a dent in the undying hope Snyder’s biggest supporters cling to.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said in a recent after-market analyst call that his company isn’t all that tantalized by the opportunity presented before them in such an acquisition. “Nothing is a must for us to meet our goals that we have for this business,” he said via THR.
“When it comes to M&A opportunities, we look at them, and we look at all of them, and we apply the same framework and lens that we look at when we look to invest. Is it a big opportunity? Is there additional value in ownership?” Sarandos explained to analysts.
“We’re predominantly focused on growing organically, investing aggressively and responsibly into the growth and returning access cash flow to shareholders,” he continued with a train of thought similar to Zaslav’s. However, Sarandos doesn’t see the upside of saddling Netflix with legacy networks, which are losing value and viewership.
“We’ve been very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks, so there is no change there. But in general, we believe that we can be and we will be choosy,” Sarandos commented. Part of Zaslav’s goal with the split between Warner and Discovery is to offload lingering debt and the undesirable TV networks into a new division.
It’s doubtful Netflix would want to gamble and take on that debt when its content has sparked a boycott led by Elon Musk. The same argument can be made about DC, which has been a damaged and flailing brand for years. Judging by LGBT themes being injected into their children’s programming, that Netflix would fix what is wrong with DC is equally unlikely.
What becomes of HBO Max in a full acquisition by Netflix, should it come to pass, might also get awkward. Would Sarandos want two streaming giants in his portfolio or would he just buy his competition in order to gut it and shut it down? His words here indicate he’d favor the latter option.
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