By:Dominic La-Viola
“The information Variety published is categorically inaccurate,” a rep for Paramount Skydance said in a statement. “This is a confidential process, which we respect and, as such, will not be commenting until the process is over.”
This is what a spokesperson for Paramount said in reference to Variety’s comments about their $ 71 billion bid to buy Warner Bros, and how they’re using Saudi Arabia investors.
To which, Paramount representative said that they are not using money from Saudi Arabia investors.
However, Variety has confirmed that Comcast Co-CEO Brian Roberts went to Saudi Arabia in October to attend a conference hosted by PIF. Where he also visited Qiddya, where the country is building a theme park destination, to scope out an area for a potential Universal park. But it’s not clear if he solicited investment for a bid on behalf of Comcast for WB.
Now, Warner Bros have said the cut-off date for all bids to be considered is going to be November 20th of this month, only a few short days away.
As of now, Comcast (Universal), Netflix, and Paramount are the three in whom the bidding is between. So we will know something soon. Although I have to admit. After hearing what Disney CEO wants to do, by integrating AI and user-short ideas into Disney Plus.
I feel like Netflix, a company already established in the streaming business and the forerunner of that aspect, would be the best option. For they are going to use Warner Brothers assets and connections for distributing to broaden their theatrical content and distribution.
It’s clear that Netflix has been trying to get into the theater distribution business, for they have been slowly building a plan around this.
With each year, they release more and more films in theaters for a limited time before dropping them on their streaming service. Which will give more films the theatrical opportunity while also building their streaming empire.
Which streaming empire would be adding an additional 20 percent of cinema history exclusively to their platform, which is the estimated percentage of cinema history that the Warner Bros company owns?
Not to mention classic shows like “Friends,” which was costing the streamer $ 100 million to have on their platform. Then, of course, there is the entire vault of IP, such as “Harry Potter,” “Dirty Harry,” almost all of Christopher Nolan’s films. All of HBO max content, including its Max Originals.
Source – Variety