When Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another won Best Picture and five other Oscars this month, it capped a banner year for Warner Bros, and gave its likely new owner a reason to smile.
A record haul of 11 Oscars, including four for Sinners and one for Weapons, plus total box office takings of $4bn from a run based mostly on original scripts instead of sequels, was a reminder of why Warner Bros has always been such a coveted Hollywood property.
It has had three owners so far this century, two in the past eight years alone. And it could soon have a fourth if David Ellison, the movie-loving 43-year-old son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has his way.