Feb 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has summoned some of the country’s major theater chains to private conversations about the potential impact of a sale of Warner Bros Discovery, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. Warner Bros Discovery and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Government lawyers are seeking information on how a sale would impact the movie-going public and whether it could result in fewer films being released in theaters, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The news comes after Warner Bros on Tuesday rejected Paramount Skydance’s latest $30-a-share hostile bid, but gave the rival Hollywood studio seven days to submit a “best and final” offer to top the existing agreement with Netflix.
Paramount acknowledged the seven-day offer but called Warner Bros’ board actions “unusual.”
The CBS-parent had said it would continue to advance the tender offer, oppose the “inferior” Netflix merger and still plans to nominate directors for the upcoming Warner Bros annual meeting.
Warner Bros is moving forward with a vote on Netflix’s offer for streaming and studio businesses on March 20.
The merger, if approved, would take place after Warner Bros spins off its Discovery Global cable operations, which include CNN, TLC, Food Network and HGTV, into a separate, publicly traded company.
The Bloomberg report said that filmmaker James Cameron, who directed Paramount’s “Titanic,” publicly endorsed the company’s takeover of Warner Bros in November and said a sale to Netflix would be “a disaster” for the cinema industry.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
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