What a Warner Bros-Paramount colossus would look like

This amount of pressure was partly why Warner was reluctant to accept the Ellisons’ advances. Raising the price and offering various warranties helped ultimately seal the deal. Considering Tinsel Town’s fears of the Netflix-led destruction of traditional cinema, Paramount’s promise to release at least 30 films a year in theaters didn’t hurt either. Nor have there been signals from Washington that, unlike Netflix, a takeover of Paramount would be met with little objection from confidence thieves, perhaps thanks to the Ellisons’ friendship with Donald Trump. The president recently refused to meet with Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos during a visit to the White House, sending an aide instead and calling for the streaming giant to fire Susan Rice, a board member who served in the Biden administration.