Welcome to Multiverse News, Your source for Information about all your favorite fictional universes Netflix has walked away from its bid to buy Warner Brothers, refusing to raise an initial offer after a counter offer from Paramount Skydance at $31 dollars a share, its largest push to buy the studio to this point. This move sets up Paramount as the favorite to acquire Netflix with no real competitor left in the field. The Ellison family has made an extended political push, as well as a financial push to raise the offer enough to secure the chance to purchase the studio and all the intellectual property included. Netflix is also expected to walk away with a $2.8 billion dollar termination fee, paid by Paramount. On an investor call on Monday, David Ellison confirmed that eventually, HBOMax and Paramount+ will merge into one streaming platform. ‘Twas two weeks before the Oscars and during awards season, Sinners took a surprise award home and we don’t care for what reason! The awards show formerly known as the SAG Awards, now called the Actor Awards, livestreamed on Netflix this past Sunday, hosted by Kristen Bell. The biggest surprise of the night was Michael B. Jordan winning the lead actor award for his roles in Sinners, which Viola Davis announced in a way that went viral. In other horror film news, Amy Madigan took home her second award this season for best supporting actress in Weapons. Scream 7 blew past all expectations at the weekend box office, where it opened to a franchise-best $64.1 million domestically and $33.1 million overseas for a global start of $97.2 million, the best opening weekend in the franchise's history. It’s a quiet time otherwise at the movies, as we look to May for the beginning of a hot summer season, with Sony Picture’s GOAT pulling ahead of Wuthering Heights, both of which are in their third weekends. Amazon has unveiled a first look at the live-action “God of War” TV series, with production on the show now underway in Vancouver. The image offers fans their first glimpse of Ryan Hurst as Kratos, the titular god of war, and Callum Vinson as his young son, Atreus. On Saturday, David Jaffe, the creator of the “God of War” video games, took to his YouTube channel to criticize the first look, calling it a “dumb fucking image," and saying "could you find a picture that doesn’t look like he’s shitting in the woods? Cause that’s what the picture looks like.” Paramount has tapped screenwriter Max Landis to pen the script for an upcoming GI Joe feature, sources tell the Hollywood Reporter. At the same time, the studio has also hired The Righteous Gemstones star and creator Danny McBride to work on a separate script for GI Joe, although it is unclear if these are two separate projects or not. Notably, Landis' career imploded in 2019 during the Me Too Movement after an expose in the Daily Beast in which several women accused him of sexual and emotional abuse. A24 has released the first trailer for Kane Parsons' upcoming horror film The Backrooms, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film, which is a directorial debut for Parsons, is based on his viral YouTube horror series that has amassed more than 190 million views. The first trailer has been released for the Wayans brothers' upcoming Scary Movie 6, which releases in theaters on June 12th. The trailer has begun appropriately playing in front of Scream 7. Warner Brothers is officially developing a Game of Thrones movie with Andor writer and House of Cards showrunner Beau Willimon attached to write the script. The movie is believed to be about Aegon I Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros, which would serve as a prequel to the mainline HBO series.
