Paramount on Monday launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, initiating a potentially bruising battle with Netflix for the company behind HBO, CNN and DC Studios, and the right to reshape much of the nation's entertainment landscape.

Emerging just days after Netflix reached a $72 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros., the takeover attempt means Paramount will go straight to Warner shareholders with a bid worth about $74.4 billion, or $30 per share in cash.

Unlike Netflix, Paramount is also offering to buy the cable television assets of Warner Bros. Paramount executives said their offer is worth about $18 billion more than the competing bid from Netflix, which they said is based on an "illusory prospective valuation" of those cable assets.

It is the same bid that Warner

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