Just when we’d all gotten used to (and tired of) Warner Bros.’ merger with Discovery, we learned the company’s open to having another owner. The news of yet another potential merger has drawn a lot of negative reactions, and now the Writers Guild of America has its own take on the matter. Spoiler: they don’t like it.
In a joint statement from its east and west branches, the WGA said to combine Warner Bros. with any of the major studios would be “a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition. Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth.”
To date, Paramount is the studio most chomping at the bit to acquire Warner Bros. It was first hinted at back in 2023, and the desire’s only grown now that the Transformers studio has gone and merged with Skydance, whose owner David Ellison is the son of one Larry Ellison, head of Oracle and one of Donald Trump’s most powerful supporters. Back in September, reports indicated Ellison was making a play for all of WB, including its cable networks and movie studio.
Outside of Paramount, other potential candidates looking to nab Warner Bros. include streamers Amazon, Netflix and Apple. Whichever studio makes a real play to acquire it, the two WGA branches have vowed to “work with regulators to block the merger.”
[via Variety]
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