Warner Bros reopens takeover talks with Paramount after receiving a waiver from Netflix

NEW YORK (AP) — Warner Bros. Discovery is briefly reopening takeover talks with Skydance-owned Paramount to hear the company's “best and final” offer, while the Hollywood giant continues to back the studio and streaming deal it struck with Netflix.

In a Tuesday regulatory filing, Warner said it had received a waiver from Netflix to reopen talks with Paramount for the next seven days, or until Monday. Warner said this will allow the companies to discuss unresolved “deficiencies” and “clarify certain terms” of Paramount's latest bid.

But in the meantime, Warner's board is still recommending shareholders support of its proposed merger with Netflix. A special meeting is now scheduled for Friday, March 20 to hold a vote on that deal.

In a statement, Netflix said it was confident that its proposed transaction “provides superior value and certainty” — but recognized “the ongoing distraction for WBD stockholders and the broader entertainment industry caused by PSKY’s antics.” The streaming giant noted it had granted Warner a seven-day waiver to “finally resolve this matter.”

Warner's leadership similarly reiterated its support for the Netflix deal. Paramount did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' request for comment Tuesday.

In December, Netflix agreed to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business for $72 billion, now in an all-cash transaction that would cover its legacy TV and movie production arms, as well as HBO Max. Including debt, the enterprise value of the deal is about $83 billion, or $27.75 per share, and would be finalized after Warner completes a previously-announced separation of its cable operations.

Meanwhile, unlike Netflix, Paramount wants to acquire Warner’s entire company — including networks like CNN and Discovery — and went straight to shareholders with an all-cash, $77.9 billion hostile offer just days after the Netflix deal was announced in December.

The enterprise value of Paramount's bid currently stands around $108 billion including debt, or $30 per share. But Warner disclosed Tuesday that a Paramount representative separately informed the company it would up its offer to $31 per share “pending engagement.”

Analysts at Raymond James said they had “long believed” Paramount was willing to raise its offer “and now it seems we are finally moving in that direction.” If Paramount were to up its price to $32 or $33 per share, they noted it would be “increasingly difficult to argue the Netflix agreement is superior," although Netflix could then move to match the bid.

“Netflix is still in the driver’s seat, but now having to make its case,” the analysts added in a Tuesday research note.

Paramount has made more attempts to sweeten its offer recently. Last week, the company said it would pay Warner shareholders an added “ticking fee” if its deal doesn’t go through by the end of the year — amounting to 25 cents per share, or a total of $650 million, for every quarter after Dec. 31. Paramount also pledged to fund Warner’s proposed $2.8 billion breakup payout to Netflix under its merger agreement.

The company has been scrambling to solidify more shareholder support. Paramount previously extended the deadline for tender offer three times. According to company disclosures, more than 42.3 million Warner shares had been “validly tendered and not withdrawn” from its hostile bid as of the start of last week, down from over 168.5 million Warner shares Jan. 21 — still a small fraction of Warner's 2.48 billion shares outstanding in series A common stock.

But also last week, one activist investor, Ancora Holdings, publicly expressed opposition to Warner's proposed merger with Netflix. And beyond its tender offer, Paramount has also moved to solicit proxies in opposition of the Netflix deal.

What, if anything, changes after the next seven days of talks has yet to be seen. Paramount, Warner and Netflix have spent the last couple of months in a heated back and forth over who has a stronger deal on the table.

The prospect of a Warner sale to either company has raised tremendous antitrust concerns from lawmakers worldwide, who are calling on regulators to carefully scrutinize a merger of this size.

The U.S. Department of Justice has already initiated its reviews, and other countries may also scrutinize either deal. Both Paramount and Netflix have said they received securities clearance from German authorities last month.

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery rose more than 2% in Tuesday morning trading. Paramount Skydance climbed nearly 6%, while Netflix's stock fell slightly.

FILE - The Warner Bros. water tower is seen at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif., Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

PARIS (AP) — Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir was released on Tuesday in 22 languages worldwide, sharing details of the horror she went through and sending a powerful message of hope and support to victims of sexual abuse.

“I wanted my story to help others,” Pelicot told French national channel France 5 last week ahead of the release of her book, “A Hymn to Life, Shame has to Change Sides.”

Pelicot recounted her story of survival in the book and in her first series of interviews since the landmark 2024 trial that turned her into a global icon against sexual violence and imprisoned her husband, who drugged her so other men could assault her.

“Today I’m doing better, and this book allowed me to engage in self-reflection, to take stock of my life,” she said. “I had to try to rebuild myself on this field of ruins. Today I am a woman standing strong.”

Pelicot said her book is meant to deliver “a message of hope to all the women who are going through a very complicated period in their lives.”

The shocking case — and Pelicot’s decision to waive her anonymity and speak publicly — prompted a reckoning over rape culture in France and beyond, as her dignity and strength impressed many across the world.

Gymnastic superstar and Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, herself a survivor of sexual abuse, paid tribute to Pelicot in a message broadcast by the BBC.

“Gisèle has demonstrated to the world that it’s not for victims of sexual abuse to feel shame — it’s the perpetrators,” Biles said. “By waiving her anonymity and refusing to feel shame, Gisèle paves the way for other victims to come forward.”

At the “Des Femmes” (“Women’s”) bookstore in Paris, several readers were eager to buy Pelicot’s book on the day of its release.

“I want to read it,” said Cécile Megueulle, who admires Pelicot. “But I tell myself that reading it will be … actually a little scary. The fact of not being in her shoes but being able to see the other side of the mirror, how she experienced it and how she managed — I don’t know if we can say that — to get through it.”

Selma Memic, a lawyer from Geneva, Switzerland, said: “The case was known as the ‘Pelicot case’ … and now we’re going to hear about ‘Gisèle’. So, that’s maybe what I’m looking for. Who is Gisèle? What are her feelings? How does she look back at it (the trial)?”

In December 2024, Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and 50 other men were convicted of sexually assaulting her between 2011 and 2020 while she was under chemical submission. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while the other defendants received sentences ranging from three to 15 years.

An appeals court later increased the sentence handed to Husamettin Dogan, a construction worker who was the only defendant who challenged his conviction.

Dominique Pelicot, whom Gisèle Pelicot had been married to for nearly 50 years, acknowledged that for years he mixed sedatives into her food and drink so he could rape her and invite other men to do the same.

The unprecedented trial exposed how online pornography, chat rooms and distorted notions of consent can fuel sexual violence.

France passed a law last October that defines rape and other sexual assault as any non-consensual sexual act in the wake of the Pelicot case, joining many other European nations that have similar consent-based laws, including neighboring Germany, Belgium and Spain. Until then, rape under French law was defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise.”

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AP journalists Catherine Gaschka and Oleg Cetinic contributed to the story.

FILE - Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse for a break during the appeals trial in the case of a man challenging his conviction, less than a year after the landmark verdict in a drugging and rape trial that shook France, on Oct. 9, 2025 in Nimes, southern France. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)