Who had this on their bingo card for late 2025? Not me. While the idea of monsters devouring each other plays well on the big screen, like all those “Godzilla vs.” movies, the drama of large corporations buying each other out in boardrooms is usually a snoozefest.

Netflix’s gobbling up Warner Bros., which owns a legacy studio, Discovery Channel, and HBO, in an $72 billion deal, is a staggering change to our streaming landscape. It’ll bring changes that affect us right down to the screens we have occupying wall space in our living rooms and bedrooms.

Most importantly, how’s it going to change the way we watch television?

ch-ch-ch-changes

Tucked within Netflix’s December 5, 2025, press release is a strong implication that Netflix subscribers will gain access to HBO Max titles: “By adding the deep film and TV libraries and HBO and HBO Max programming, Netflix members will have even more high-quality titles from which to choose.”

Netflix and HBO Max are two of the most expensive television streaming subscriptions on the market; for each, you have to pay over $20 per month to watch 4K content without advertisements.

Slapping HBO Max titles onto an existing Netflix subscription sounds like giving away way too much of a valuable thing if it’s not accompanied by severe limitations, a more expensive combined tier, or both.

We could end up seeing more Netflix Originals, though, as Netflix’s press release hints at part of its justification for the deal, by saying it will allow Netflix to “significantly expand U.S. production capacity and continue to grow investment in original content over the long term…”

“Under the deal, each Warner Bros Discovery shareholder will receive $23.25 in cash and about $4.50 in Netflix stock per share, valuing Warner at $27.75 a share, or about $72 billion in equity and $82.7 billion including debt,” as reported by Reuters.

If you’re a Warner Bros. Discovery investor, then your $23.25 could almost buy you one month of a premium Netflix subscription. Almost.