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Who Owns Warner Bros. Franchises Now? Netflix’s Proposed Deal and Paramount’s Pending Merger

Netflix was the proposed Warner Bros. buyer, but Paramount Skydance later became the buyer under a pending merger agreement. Here are the named franchises—and what the announcements do and do not establish.
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Netflix does not own Warner Bros. as of October 4, 2026. Netflix announced a proposed acquisition in December 2025, but Warner Bros. Discovery later entered a merger agreement with Paramount Skydance. The companies said they expected that transaction to close on October 6, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions—so it was still pending on October 4. The announcements name several major entertainment properties, but neither provides a ranked list of the “biggest” movie franchises.

How the Warner Bros. deal changed

Netflix’s December 2025 announcement described a proposed acquisition that included Warner Bros.’ film and television studios, HBO Max, and HBO. It named properties such as Harry Potter, Friends, Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, The Wizard of Oz, and the DC Universe. Those were examples of Warner Bros. properties in a proposed transaction, not proof that Netflix had acquired them. Netflix’s announcement also stated proposed enterprise and equity values for the company transaction; those figures were not valuations of individual franchises and do not describe the later Paramount transaction.

Warner Bros. Discovery subsequently entered into a merger agreement with Paramount Skydance. In a September 30, 2026 announcement, Paramount and WBD said they expected the merger to close October 6, subject to customary closing conditions. That date was still in the future on October 4. The joint expected-close announcement is the relevant status update; it does not establish that the merger had already closed.

Major franchises named in the announced portfolio

Paramount’s transaction announcement names the following properties as examples of the combined company’s portfolio. The list is not a ranking, and its entries are not all movie franchises in the same sense: some are primarily television or cross-media properties. Paramount’s announcement does not supply a franchise-by-franchise ownership schedule.

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Property named What the announcement establishes
Harry Potter Named as a portfolio example in both the Netflix proposal and the Paramount transaction announcement.
DC Universe Named as a portfolio example in both announcements; it is a shared universe spanning multiple characters and formats, not one film series.
Game of Thrones Named in both announcements; it is principally a television property, with related cross-media works.
The Lord of the Rings Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples.
Mission: Impossible Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples.
Top Gun Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples; the brand spans film, television, and other media.
Transformers Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples.
Star Trek Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples; it is a cross-media franchise with a substantial television presence.
SpongeBob SquarePants Named in Paramount’s portfolio examples; it is primarily an animated television property with films and other media.

Why these properties cannot honestly be called the “10 biggest”

The official announcements offer illustrative portfolio examples, not comparable measurements of franchise size. They do not rank properties by box-office gross, film count, audience, revenue, or valuation, and they do not define what “biggest” means. A defensible ranking would need a chosen metric, a consistent time period and territory, and clear rules for spin-offs and shared universes. Without that method and comparable data, presenting these ten as the biggest would imply evidence the announcements do not provide.

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What a corporate deal does—and does not—say about rights

Descriptions of a company’s studios and portfolio do not settle every title’s rights. The announcements do not give a title-by-title account of territorial rights, licensing windows, exclusivity, or where a film or series can stream. A change in corporate ownership therefore should not be read as an immediate change in streaming availability, or as proof that every named property is exclusively controlled worldwide by one company.

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