It’s official: Big Red is buying the back-lot empire home to Batman, Harry Potter, and Tony Soprano. On the heels of weeks of frenzied bidding among rival studio suitors, Netflix announced early on Friday it has bought Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets for $82.7 billion: a blockbuster deal with the potential to reshape Hollywood and the wider media universe, if it can pass significant regulatory hurdles. Pending government approval, the cash-and-stock transaction would close by next fall once Warner Bros. Discovery spins off its cable unit — encompassing CNN, HGTV, Food Network, and Discovery among other channels — into a separate company.

Arriving relatively late to the bidding war in late October, Netflix ultimately bested competing offers from Comcast (the parent com

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