New York. Netflix has reached a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to acquire the legacy Hollywood giant’s studio and streaming businesses for $72 billion.

The acquisition, announced Friday, would unite two of the industry’s largest film and TV players. Warner’s assets include its namesake film and television studio, HBO Max, and DC Studios. Netflix, meanwhile, has risen to global dominance in on-demand entertainment while building its own production arm behind hits like Stranger Things and Squid Game.

The cash-and-stock deal is valued at $27.75 per Warner share, giving the company an enterprise value of about $82.7 billion. The transaction is expected to close after Warner spins off its Discovery Global cable operations into a new publicly traded company in the third quarter of 2026.

Warner Bros. shares rose nearly 3 percent in premarket trading, while Netflix and Paramount fell more than 2 percent.

The purchase of Warner’s storied studios would mark a shift for Netflix’s limited theatrical presence. Under the proposed acquisition, Netflix has pledged to maintain theatrical releases for Warner’s films, honoring existing contractual obligations.

Netflix has largely kept its original content on its streaming platform, with only a few exceptions such as limited theatrical screenings for the KPop Demon Hunters sing-along and the upcoming Stranger Things series finale.

As recently as October, when Warner signaled it was open to a sale, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos insisted on an earnings call that the company had “no interest in owning legacy media networks” and that “there was no change there,” while still leaving the door open to a potential bid.

Friday’s announcement follows a months-long bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. Speculation about interest from Netflix and Comcast surfaced in the fall. Paramount, which completed an $8 billion merger in August, also reportedly made several all-cash offers backed by CEO David Ellison’s family.

For a time, Paramount appeared to be the frontrunner and unlike Netflix or Comcast, it was reportedly seeking to acquire Warner’s entire business, including its cable networks such as CNN and Discovery.

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