Guess who’s coming to dinner? If you’re David Zaslav, the answer is “most of Hollywood.” The Warner Bros. Discovery CEO feted LuckyChap champions Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley among a consortium of media moguls including Oprah Winfrey, filmmaker Nancy Meyers, CAA head Bryan Lourd, and Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels in L.A. on November 19. Al Pacino, Sandra Bullock, Jonah Hill, Bette Midler, and Kristen Wiig were also in attendance. The next day, Zaslav received the first round of offers to purchase WBD, per Variety. He reportedly told the crowd his plan was to get on a red-eye flight and head to New York to consider the offers. Sources added that conversation during the evening was not focused on the sale but the projects they were all respectively working on. No need talk about the sword of Damocles if it’s just hanging over everybody’s heads anyway.
Paramount, Comcast, and Netflix all submitted bids, per The Hollywood Reporter. If Paramount wins out, it would be the second major studio purchased by David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Comcast already owns Universal but could use WBD’s HBO Max to take its domestic streaming service, Peacock, worldwide. The only reported buyer that doesn’t already have a theatrical studio is Netflix, because the company refuses to put its movies in wide release. However, CEO Ted Sarandos told WB its films would be in theaters if the offer goes through, per Bloomberg. Earlier this year, Netflix missed out on LuckyChap’s Wuthering Heights to Bros. because the company refused to commit to a wide theatrical release. Next, there will likely be more rounds of bidding, per THR, and once a buyer is chosen, the deal will have to get approved by President Trump’s FCC. What will Trump’s Special Envoy to Hollywood Jon Voight think about this?
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