Could an AT&T and Discovery Merger Affect DC Comics?

05/16/2021 04:10 pm EDT

The entertainment world feels like it's always in a state of flux, with powerhouse companies merging and acquiring various assets in recent years. The most recent example to be rumored online has been between AT&T and Discovery Inc., with the two companies reportedly in talks to combine their assets, with the goal of the rumored merger to create a media presence that could rival the outputs of Netflix and Disney. A new report from CNBC dives into what that could entail, with the article suggesting that the "likely structure" would be to combine Discovery and WarnerMedia into a new publicly traded company, which would be co-owned by both AT&T and Discovery shareholders. This has made some already begin to wonder about what that could potentially mean for the properties already under the WarnerMedia banner — including DC Comics.

DC has been tied to the Time Warner corporation in one capacity or another since the 1960s, with the comic publishing company helping provide a wealth of characters and intellectual property to inspire movies and television. Over the past decade or so, DC's own role as a subsidiary of Warner Bros. has changed significantly with the advent of DC Entertainment, which manages both the publishing arm and the various other adaptations inspired by the characters. Those evolutions have only grown more public since AT&T's purchase of Time Warner in 2018, with some highly publicized executive changes and creative decisions on both the film and publishing sides.

At the moment, there is no clear indication of if or how DC Comics would be impacted by an AT&T and Discovery merger, or if said merger would even become a reality, with initial reports indicating that it could ultimately fall apart. And even if the merger did come to fruition, the fact that Discovery is known for being primarily focused on reality TV and nonscripted programming could mean that the status quo of DC and other fictional franchises would be relatively unchanged.

But on the off chance that the deal does go through, the idea of DC existing under the parent company of a hypothetical new WarnerMedia and Discovery hybrid — one that isn't solely owned by AT&T — has the potential to bring about a new era for DC Entertainment in one way or another.

What do you think of AT&T and Discovery reportedly in talks to join forces? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of Paramount. Sign up for Paramount+ by clicking here.