Tips for Winning Bar Bets About Paramount, Warner Brothers, and Netflix

Although this moment-to-moment situation officially kicked off in late October when Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced it was for sale, there are lots of non-trivial facts to know about the companies involved in the bidding. Yes, these are crucial companies in the flow of American information and entertainment, but perhaps these facts might give you an edge the next time you are betting at a bar.

 

Netflix Market Cap is 4x Larger Than WBD & Paramount Combined

There are some things that are just rather odd about this big-money endeavor.

• WBD, the target, has a market cap of $69 billion and a debt of $33.52 billion.
• Paramount Skydance, the company that got a reprieve of sorts from the WBD board, allowing it to submit its “best and final” offer by February 23, has a market cap of $11 billion and a total gross debt of $15.5 billion.
• Netflix’s market cap is $324.5 billion and debt $17 billion.

In other words, Paramount Skydance — the smallest and seemingly most aggressive suitor (overturning the initial merger that WBD accepted with Netflix on December 5, 2025) — is evidently unstoppable, financial differences notwithstanding.

Perhaps Netflix could simply buy Paramount, too, and get the whole thing over with.

 

Paramount’s Main Money Isn’t Movies

Paramount is a distribution, not production company. One of the issues that Paramount raised to throw shade on the $82.7-billion Netflix bid is that the streamer only wants Warner Bros. Studios, HBO/Max and DC Studios, while Paramount wants the WBD cable operations, too, and so is offering some $108.4 billion (which may be a different number by the time you read this).

Arguably, Netflix’s position is that it is interested in the movie-making assets, period.

Another criticism Paramount raised is that Netflix put its films in theaters for only about 10 to 17 days before simply offering it on its service. Paramount positioned itself as the defender of movie houses across the land, with CEO David Ellison saying movies would be in theaters for a minimum of 45 days before moving to video-on-demand and then streaming.

So Ted Sarandos, Netflix co-CEO, countered saying there would be a 45-day theatrical window should his company get WBD.

This Paramount position might make it seem as though it is the more traditional movie-focused company bidding.

Under the Paramount umbrella is CBS and cable channels including Nickelodeon and Comedy Central.

While you might think of it primarily as a movie studio, turns out that the film business accounts for about 15% of its revenue, with people watching things on TV screens (whether this is “NCIS” on CBS or “Landman” on Paramount+) accounting for most of its revenue.

So if the focus is on the movie-making operation, then Netflix’s bid seems more to the point and Paramount is less film-first than it might appear.

 

Warner Bros. Won an Oscar for a Film Before There Was Oscar

In 1929, at the first Academy Awards ceremony, Warner Bros. received an Oscar for The Jazz Singer—which was released in 1927.

The studio received the award for bringing sound to the movies.

Oddly enough, Paramount won its first Best Picture Oscar in 1929 for Wings. (Yes, it has sound.)

Netflix didn’t exist until 1997.

 

None, Better, Best (Pictures)

Netflix has had zero Best Picture Academy Award wins. (It didn’t get its first nomination for any Academy Awards until January 2014, for a documentary, The Square. It didn’t win.)

Warner Bros. has received nine Best Picture Oscars. The first came in 1937 for The Life of Emile Zola. The most recent was back in 2012 for Argo. (Its longest drought was between wins for Casablanca in 1943 and My Fair Lady in 1964.)

Paramount has received 11 Best Picture awards, starting with the aforementioned Wings. The last movie receiving a Best Picture Oscar associated with Paramount is Titanic. But that was a co-production with 20^th Century Fox. That award was presented in 1997, which is a longer drought than Warner Bros.

 

None, Better, Best (Pictures) II

The Paramount Best Picture drought will not end at this year’s Academy Awards.

That’s because Paramount has 0 nominations for any category.

Netflix has a total of 18 nominations. That number includes two contenders for Best Picture: Frankenstein and Train Dreams. (Its first Best Picture nomination was in 2019 for Roma. The first streamer to win a Best Picture was Apple TV in 2022 for CODA.)

Warner Bros. has 30 nominations, including three for Best Picture: Sinners, One Battle After Another and F1 (which was produced by Apple Original Films, but distributed by Warner Bros).

 

Location, Location, Location

Paramount, the second-oldest major studio (Universal is older — by eight days: April 30,1912 to May 8, 1912), is the only major studio actually based in Hollywood. Before Paramount Global was acquired by Skydance, Paramount HQ was in New York City. But after the acquisition the decision was made to move to 5555 Melrose Avenue, in Hollywood.

WBD has its corporate operations in midtown Manhattan but the Warner Bros. Studio operations are in Burbank, separated from Hollywood proper by the Hollywood Hills.

Netflix is based in Los Gatos, California, which is about 350 miles north of Hollywood. Los Gatos is in Silicon Valley, as is Santa Clara, where Larry Ellison, father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, co-founded Oracle Corp. Ellison père is notable because he has made a personal guarantee backing the Paramount Skydance bid to the tune of $43.3 billion.

 

What Do These Sums Mean?

Here are the top-10 grossing movies of all time:

1. Avatar $2.924 billion
2. Avengers: Endgame: $2.799 billion
3. Avatar: The Way of Water: $2.334 billion
4. Titanic: $2.265 billion
5. Ne Zha 2: $2.260 billion
6. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: $2.071 billion
7. Avengers: Infinity War: $2.052 billion
8. Spider-Man: No Way Home: $1.921 billion
9. Zootopia 2: $1.830 billion
10. Inside Out 2: $1.699 billion

If you add up all of those worldwide grosses (none but Titanic even involving any of these three studios) it is still significantly less than what Larry Ellison is personally guaranteeing to buy Warner Bros. Discovery: $22.155 billion to $43.3 billion.

That’s a bet I wouldn’t get in on — either way.