LOS ANGELES - Warner Bros. Discovery said it has received a revised acquisition proposal from Paramount Skydance, signalling that the offer could open the door to the company rethinking its deal with Netflix.
The sweetened offer was the latest instalment of a bidding war set to reshape Hollywood and US media, and has drawn White House attention, with President Donald Trump insisting he will have a say on the outcome.
In a significant development, Warner Bros. Discovery's board said Tuesday that Paramount's revised bid "could reasonably be expected to lead to" a superior proposal to the existing Netflix deal -- a key legal threshold that would allow for more formal negotiations with Paramount.
Warner Bros. said Paramount's revised offer includes a purchase price of $31.00 per share in cash, a one-dollar-per-share increase from its earlier offer, which was valued at around $108 billion.
Paramount has also offered to cover the $2.8 billion termination fee Warner Bros. would owe Netflix if it walked away from their deal, and pledged a $7 billion fee payable to Warner Bros. should the Paramount transaction fail to close due to regulatory hurdles.
Questions are swirling over whether politics will influence the outcome of the battle, with Paramount run by David Ellison and the transaction financed largely by his father, Oracle tycoon Larry Ellison, a longtime Trump ally.
Trump has said he will be "involved" in any decision on the merger, and the US Department of Justice is currently reviewing Netflix's proposed acquisition. European authorities and other regulators will also have their say.
A victory by Paramount would see news outlet CNN -- often the target of Trump's threats and criticism -- pass to Ellison family control, amid criticism that their takeover of Paramount-owned CBS brought changes more to the White House's liking.
The Netflix offer does not include Warner Bros. television properties such as CNN and Discovery, which would belong to a newly created publicly traded company if the deal is sealed.