Marvel buying DC?

Disney/Marvel buying DC/Warner Bros.

Introduction.

Last week, reports came that Warner Bros., DC Comics, and DC Brand are officially being sold. CNBC first reported that the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery is the trojan horse to have the deal completed.

To understand thin we would need to study the Discovery deal with Warner Media.

WarnerMedia & Discovery Deal Explained.

The announcement that AT&T is merging WarnerMedia with Discovery, Inc. to create a new company under a new name (yet to be revealed). The deal will put WarnerMedia's subsidiaries - including Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO Max, DC Films, and networks like CNN and TBS - under the same umbrella as Discovery brands like HGTV, Animal Planet, Food Network, and (of course) Discovery Channel.
The news of the deal broke less than five years after AT&T first announced its planned $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner. This was hit with an antitrust lawsuit by the Department of Justice, which AT&T fought against and eventually won, rebranding Time Warner as WarnerMedia. However, the merging of WarnerMedia and Discovery will effectively undo that hard-won deal and create an entirely new company that is no longer vertically integrated with AT&T.

In a nutshell, AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner was part of an ambitious plan to expand the company's scope into producing media content like movies and TV shows and to get in on the lucrative streaming wars with the creation of HBO Max. Now, AT&T is letting go of WarnerMedia's assets to refocus on telecommunications and offload some of the debt resulting from its expensive purchase a few years ago. WarnerMedia and Discovery will cease to exist as individual companies and reemerge as a new company that combines the assets of both. This company won't be a subsidiary of AT&T like WarnerMedia was, but AT&T's shareholders will own 71% of the company while Discovery's shareholders will own the other 29%. The deal is expected to conclude in 2022 with Discovery's current President and CEO, David Zaslav, becoming CEO of the company after the merge is complete.

Now let's shift to the main topic.

The new company, WarnerDiscovery, has given flexibility for a sale of both entities (DC Comics and DC Brand) to Walt Disney Company.

No word yet if Disney's plan is to keep DC Comics/DC Brand as a separate entity or fuse it with Marvel into one giant brand. It does however close the gap for people to have Thor and Superman sharing pages (again) and an Avengers vs Justice League movie down the line.

Disney is in talks to buy DC Comics since WarnerMedia and Discovery are now merging due to AT&T, the parent company of WarnerMedia, looking to get completely out of entertainment.

- The new company, WarnerDiscovery, has given flexibility for a sale of both entities (DC Comics and DC Brand) to Walt Disney Company.

- No word yet if Disney's plan is to keep DC Comics/DC Brand as a separate entity or fuse it with Marvel into one giant brand. It does however close the gap for people to have Thor and Superman sharing pages (again) and an Avengers vs Justice League movie down the line.