Well this would be another industry shake up as it is being reported that initial talks to merge WB/Discovery with Paramount have taken place. This news was first reported by Axios but has seen been back ed up by the trades. Axios initial report said that WB/Discovery boss David Zaslav met with Bob Bakish, president of Paramount on Tuesday to discuss a merger. That of course does not mean this merger is going to take place. However it does indicate there may be a willingness from both parties to explore this possibility. I just hope they pick a new name for the whole company and don’t call it Warner Bros. Discovery Paramount.
Zaslav also reportedly approached Paramount non exec chairwoman Shari Redstone. The Redstone family are the majority shareholders of Paramount, CBS, MTV and more.
If it does progress you can see why this could work for both parties. WB/D is in debt, but have a big reach with Max and hot IP’s. Paramount have cash, but their platform doesn’t have much reach and pull currently. It has also been reported that the Redstones are interested in selling up their shares in National Amusement which controls the platforms I mentioned above.
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From a fan point of view though there are concerns about all these mergers. Critics will point to the fact that since the Disney/Fox purchase, there have been less movies released each year. I’ll play devils advocate here though and point out several factors such as a global pandemic and an unprecedented writer and actor strike at the same time. Both could easily be argued as the real reason Disney has produced less movies than Disney and Fox separately did. Is that true? I think we’d have to wait a few years to answer that question accurately.
The question though, is where does this end. We already got a huge merger between WB and Discovery recently, then we had Disney and Fox prior. What is next? Apple buys Disney, Amazon buys WB/D/P, then Apple buys Netflix and we have 2 studios dominating worldwide entertainment and streaming. Then get ready for the Amazon Cinematic Universe and the Apple Cinematic Universe, the AmCU and the ApCU. Optimus Prime vs Batman, Stranger Things and Star Wars mergers, cats and dogs living together etc.
What do you think of this news that initial talks to merge WB/Discovery with Paramount have taken place? Thoughts below.
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