David Ellison’s Hollywood strategy: if you can’t beat Netflix, just ask dad to buy everyone who also can’t beat Netflix.

After watching his father Larry Ellison leapfrog a jacked, freshly-rewifed Jeff Bezos to become the second-richest man on Earth, David Ellison figured, “Well, I guess I better start spending some of daddy’s money… it’d be a shame for all of that to not go to waste.” And Hollywood, being the black hole of cash and broken dreams that it is, said: “Come on in, king.”

So here we are. Just weeks after buying Paramount Global for $8.4 billion (holy overpay, Batman)... David Ellison is now setting his sights on Warner Bros. Discovery. I guess his definition of smart business “strategery” is buying two companies that have been repeatedly suplexed by Netflix and Disney+ for the better part of a decade.

Based on reports, Paramount Skydance (Ellison’s new Frankenstudio) is preparing a majority cash bid for the entire Warner Bros. Discovery empire. I’m talking the whole enchilada: HBO, CNN, Warner Bros. Studios, TNT, all of it… even the parts our parents still watch on cable.

And if you're wondering how investors feel about the idea of strapping two sinking ships together and hoping for a cruise… well, they’re weirdly into it. At the time of this writing, Warner Bros. Discovery stock is up 25% on the news. Paramount jumped 8%. Showing that Wall Street’s new kink is media consolidation.

(Source: Reuters)

But let’s not kid ourselves… this ain’t just about streaming. This is pure, uncut “F*ck it, let’s scale” energy, straight from the school of “buy now, figure it out never.” The entire media industry is in a full-blown identity crisis. Cable’s rotting in a retirement home, streaming’s basically a high-stakes money incinerator, and the only thing reliably generating cash is licensing Friends to millennials who need background noise while they spiral through IG at midnight.

Ironically, WBD hasn’t even gotten the offer yet. As of right now, this is still in the “getting the investment bankers drunk and whispering about synergy” stage. Which makes sense, because financing a deal this massive will likely require some serious capital gymnastics. As in: Paramount Skydance’s balance sheet alone ain’t cutting it. But when your dad is worth $150 billion and just chilling in a mega-yacht, who needs traditional funding?

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)

Meanwhile, WBD CEO David Zaslav is busy trying to split his company into two parts: the sexier Warner Bros. Studios + streaming, and the “please don’t look at us” Discovery Global cable biz. He says that spin-off will be done by April, which is good news for Ellison, who’d probably rather not buy a bunch of channels that only air Guy Fieri and reruns of 90 Day Fiance.

Of course, there’s a chance this Frankenstein merger could work. If Ellison can consolidate content, cut costs, fix the disaster that is Paramount+, and get HBO back to making hits instead of trying to rebrand the Max app every other quarter… maybe, maybe he can claw back some ground in the streaming wars.

But right now, this feels like a rich kid buying spree with no plan other than to spend the most money. The good news is that Oracle’s cloud biz is essentially an unlimited money tree, so daddy’s got deep enough pockets to keep the lights on… or buy a few more broken streaming platforms just for funsies. At this rate, instead of trying to compete with Netflix, maybe the next step is to just buy the damn thing.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Netflix and Disney as mentioned in the article.