Hollywood’s Next Big Deal: Will Netflix make a play for NBC Universal?

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David Ellison has knocked out Warner Bros. Discovery, merging it with Paramount into the new Skydance Corp. Now the chatter around town is about the industry’s next megamerger.

In the current landscape, only one media company of considerable size could be ripe for a takeover: NBCUniversal. Following its planned spinoff from Comcast in mid-2027, NBCU could fetch $60 billion from a motivated buyer, research firm Morningstar estimates. As for who that acquirer could be, industry sources uniformly point to Netflix as the leading candidate.

Netflix chief Ted Sarandos, after walking away from the streamer’s effort to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO, said his key takeaway was that “we really built our M&A muscle.” He hasn’t tipped his hand about what Netflix might pursue next, saying in April only that “we invest in the business both organically and opportunistically.”

Meanwhile, Comcast execs, in announcing the NBCU spinoff plans in June, said they weren’t splitting up the media company to ready it for a sale. But when pressed about the possibility of M&A after the separation, Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh, who’s set to become NBCU’s chief executive post-spin, suggested deals could be in the offing. As an independent company, it will “have the freedom now to explore adjacent businesses where we have the right to play,” he told Wall Street analysts.

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Over most of its 29-year history, Netflix shunned big M&A, preferring to stick to its knitting as it continued to enjoy strong subscriber and financial growth. But the calculus is different now: In the third quarter of 2026, top-line growth dropped to 11.8%, the lowest level in three years, and subscribers in the U.S. are spending less time with Netflix than they used to.

To jump-start its growth, “Netflix needs to make an acquisition,” says Terry Dugan, entertainment finance co-head of law firm Moore & Van Allen. “The only obvious suspect is NBCUniversal.”

Yes, Netflix is still turning a nice profit and delivering quarter-over-quarter growth. But the top brass became alarmed about the slowing pace. Sarandos and co-chief Greg Peters decided to overhaul its content leadership team, giving the boot to Bela Bajaria as chief content officer and to Dan Lin as head of film. The purge is a seeming concession by Netflix’s co-CEOs that the company is not delivering enough must-watch content — that the drop in U.S. engagement is not just part of the natural ebb and flow of viewing.

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NBCU would for the most part fit in well with Netflix’s overall business. Peacock stood at 48 million subscribers as of the end of September, and fusing that with Netflix’s 325 million-plus subscriber base would be a win for both sides. It’s easy to see Bravo and its distinct brand of lifestyle shows becoming a tile on the Netflix app.

Universal Pictures’ library is home to more than 4,000 films and 130,000 episodes of TV, including enormous franchises like “Back to the Future,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Bourne Identity,” “Fast & Furious” and “Despicable Me” — not to mention Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” one of the biggest blockbusters of 2026.

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