A scion of the Hollywood legend who founded the company at the center of the Trump-fueled takeover of CNN has condemned the deal.
Gregory Orr’s grandfather, Jack Warner, founded Warner Bros., now part of Warner Bros. Discovery, which is set to be subsumed by the MAGA billionaires Larry and David Ellison.
The deal will likely hand control of CNN to Trump-kissing Substacker Bari Weiss, and give the Ellisons control of one of Hollywood’s most storied studios.
Now, Orr is lambasting the deal as a disaster for the company his grandfather started in 1923.
“Merging with Paramount Skydance is like a shotgun wedding with your dumb cousin. I fear for the health of the kids,” Orr, 71, told The Hollywood Reporter.
On Thursday, Netflix bowed out of its knife fight bidding war with Paramount over the biggest prize in Hollywood: Warner Bros. Discovery. The purchase includes Warner’s subsidiaries, like CNN and HBO, as well as the extensive film catalog of its Hollywood studio.
“The deal with Netflix was a good marriage,” Orr admitted on Friday after initial skepticism at the December merger agreement.
Paramount upped its bid to a whopping $31 per share just one day after its Maga-code CEO, David Ellison, 43, attended President Trump’s State of the Union address. The new bid totals more than $110 billion, nearly $30 billion higher than Netflix’s initial offer.
Netflix considered the price tag was too steep, and CEO Ted Sarandos, who had just attended meetings at the White House, announced on Thursday that the streamer was removing itself from contention.
“I chuckled at Netflix’s original offer of $27.75/share because it was only 25 cents more than what the brothers were paid in 1956 for their shares,” Orr said.
“As to Paramount and Ellison, I don’t hear a good argument for why they should buy Warner Bros. Discovery except that they will benefit from it,” he added. “Paramount offers very little in global streaming or cash reserves or income compared to Netflix.”
Though Orr wasn’t fully convinced by Netflix’s accepted bid in December, he still believes it would’ve been the lesser of two evils.
“Netflix offers Warner Bros. the strongest opportunity to thrive as a storied creator and distributor of world-class entertainment,” the Warner Bros. heir said.
As part of its aggressive campaign, Paramount enlisted Oscar-winning director James Cameron and Republican Attorneys General to fearmonger against Netflix’s offer. Cameron, 71, wrote a letter to Sen. Mike Lee signalling that Netflix would reduce theatrical runs for studio films.
“Repeated public statements by Netflix show that it will support theatrical exhibition [and] signals a flexibility in their business model. It suggests that as long as theatrical exhibition provides meaningful income and publicity for their films, then they will support it,” Orr said.
He was particularly appreciative of Sarandos, 61, who has testified in a congressional antitrust hearing and defended the industry from “culture warriors like Senator Ted Cruz.”
Orr said he believes the streamer would’ve offered “a wide moat and high walls as the industry is challenged by other platforms like YouTube and the threat from AI.”
The Warner Bros. heir concluded that despite his reticence, his grandfather would’ve welcomed any deal of this scale.
“Jack and his brothers wouldn’t be as sentimental about the sale as I am,” Orr admitted. “The brothers built an incredible company, their respected name as its backbone, and ran it with a social conscience while also making damn good money.”
