Warner Bros. Discovery said on Tuesday that it would restart the deal talks with Paramount Skydance that it ended in December, giving the company another chance at besting Netflix for a deal. Paramount will have until Feb. 23 to negotiate its best and final offer.

Warner Bros. Discovery last year rejected Paramount’s offer to buy the entire company for $108 billion in favor of a deal to sell only its streaming and studios business to Netflix for $83 billion. Warner Bros. Discovery said at the time that Netflix offered the better deal for shareholders. Paramount disagreed and quickly made its case to shareholders through a hostile bid.

In the roughly two months since then, Paramount has amended its offer twice, each time addressing some of the concerns that Warner Bros. Discovery’s board had raised. Paramount’s CEO, David Ellison, has also raised questions about the Netflix bid, including whether its deal can pass regulatory scrutiny.

Some Warner Bros. Discovery investors, including Pentwater Capital Management, have also raised concerns, encouraging the company to restart talks with Paramount. Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance were both up about 3% in premarket trading.

To date, Paramount has not publicly raised its offer from $30 a share. But last week, Warner Bros. Discovery said that a senior representative for Paramount had verbally informed a company board member that, if the board authorized talks with Paramount, it would agree to pay $31 a share.

In that conversation, the Paramount representative added that it would be willing to further improve its offer.

“It’s about time the actual headline price bidding heated up in what has to be one of the most inactive corporate bidding wars in history,” said Eric Talley, a business professor at Columbia Law School.

In a letter to the Paramount board on Tuesday, David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, and Samuel A. DiPiazza Jr., chair of the company, said: “We welcome the opportunity to engage with you and expeditiously determine whether PSKY can deliver an actionable, binding proposal that provides superior value.”

In Paramount’s latest offer, it agreed to pay the $2.8 billion fee Warner Bros. Discovery would owe to Netflix if their agreement were terminated, as well as agreeing to back Warner Bros. Discovery’s debt costs. Paramount also said it would pay Warner Bros. Discovery’s shareholders around $650 million in cash, starting in 2027, for each quarter that the deal did not close.

Warner Bros. Discovery said Tuesday that it had requested a number of clarifications about Paramount’s latest proposal. Among them were concerns about the extent of Paramount’s support for Warner Bros. Discovery’s debt costs and the conditions under which Paramount could legally walk away from a deal. It also wanted assurances that Paramount would be willing to contribute more equity if its debt financing fell apart.

According to the terms of Warner Bros. Discovery’s contract with Netflix, it can engage in talks with a rival bidder if it thinks it can lead to a “reasonably superior offer.” Warner Bros. Discovery said in its letter on Tuesday that it did not yet think that Paramount’s offer met that bar — but that Netflix had given Warner Bros. Discovery a seven-day waiver to see if it could clarify its concerns.

“Throughout the robust and highly competitive strategic review process, Netflix has consistently taken a constructive, responsive approach with WBD, in stark contrast to Paramount Skydance,” Netflix said in a statement released on Tuesday. “While we are confident that our transaction provides superior value and certainty, we recognize the ongoing distraction for WBD stockholders and the broader entertainment industry caused by PSKY’s antics.”

If Paramount makes a superior offer, Netflix has the right to improve its own bid. Shares of Netflix have been under pressure since it announced the deal in December, falling about 15% this year. Its stock rose 1.5% in premarket trading.

Discovery said Tuesday that it had scheduled a shareholder vote on Netflix’s offer for March 20.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Lauren Hirsch/Stella Kalinina
c. 2026 The New York Times Company