Brooks Barnes

In a watershed moment for Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence, Disney that it would buy a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and bring its characters to Sora, the A.I. company’s short-form video platform. A curated selection of videos made with Sora will be available to stream on Disney+ as part of the three-year deal, giving the streaming service a foothold in a type of content that younger audiences, in particular, enjoy viewing and that has proved powerful for competitors like YouTube and TikTok.

Netflix announced plans to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business, in a deal that will send shock waves through Hollywood and the broader media landscape. The cash-and-stock deal values the business at $82.7 billion, including debt. The acquisition is expected to close after Warner Bros. Discovery carves out its cable unit, which the companies expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2026.

The tug of war over Hulu is over. Disney agreed to pay Comcast an additional $439 million for full control of the streaming service, ending a year and a half dispute over the amount. Disney had argued that it owed Comcast nothing beyond the $8.6 billion it already paid for Comcast’s 33 percent stake — and Comcast countered that Disney owed another $5 billion. Eventually, a third-party appraiser was brought in. The deal is expected to close by July 24. Robert A.

Twenty-First Century Fox agreed to sell its 39 percent stake in the British broadcaster Sky to Comcast in a deal worth $15 billion, ending Rupert Murdoch’s yearslong ambition to take full ownership of the satellite service he helped found three decades ago. Murdoch, the executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox, sold most of his empire to the Walt Disney Company this summer. The proceeds of the Sky sale will go to Disney, which plans to invest the money in its newest effort to sell its content directly to viewers via streaming services.

Comcast and the Walt Disney Company have long been rivals. But Brian Roberts, who runs Comcast, has recently become the Magic Kingdom’s nemesis in chief. He waged an unrelenting fight for 21st Century Fox over the summer, forcing Disney to pay about $18 billion more than it had planned in order to secure Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire. Then, on Sept 22, Comcast emerged as the decisive victor in a battle with Disney for control of the British pay-television company Sky. For Robert A.

Comcast announced an offer worth $65 billion for the bulk of 21st Century Fox’s businesses, setting up a showdown with the Walt Disney Company for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. The all-cash bid by Comcast, the largest cable company in the United States, came a day after a federal judge approved a merger between AT&T and Time Warner. Comcast executives had awaited the decision in that case before mounting their bid for 21st Century Fox.

Disney’s offer to buy 21st Century Fox. CVS’s bid for Aetna. T-Mobile’s proposed merger with Sprint. The path for these blockbuster deals and others could be transformed in an instant on June 12, when a federal judge is expected to issue his opinion on the government’s effort to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. It is one of the most influential antitrust cases in decades, enthralling Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue. If the merger is blocked, some executives are likely to slim down their deal aspirations.

The Walt Disney Company has reached a deal to buy most of the assets of 21st Century Fox, the conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, in an all-stock transaction valued at roughly $52.4 billion. To complete the integration, a legacy-defining task, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, agreed to renew his contract for a fourth time, delaying retirement from July 2019 to the end of 2021.