Just this month, DC Comics celebrated the 40th anniversary of its seminal “The Dark Knight Returns.” Not coincidentally, social media has recently been flooded with AI-created, fake but viral trailers for a supposed 2026 version featuring Christian Bale once again as the world’s greatest detective.
Warner Bros. has indicated no actual plans to film, and that might be just as well depending on what happens with a major different drama playing out in corporate boardrooms. Netflix and rival Paramount are fighting to acquire Warner, which owns DC Comics. If you thought Bane and the Joker were scary, wait until you see who’s backing the Paramount bid and potentially about to help orchestrate a takeover of one of America’s most beloved superhero franchises. Spoiler alert: It’s the Qataris.
Late last year, Netflix announced its intent to buy Warner Bros. The acquisition would be an $83 billion deal, causing some people to fret that it would put too many different intellectual properties under the same umbrella. Warner Bros. owns the rights to Harry Potter, Looney Tunes, DC Comics, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and on and on and on.
That argument didn’t hold a lot of water because rival Paramount has its own massive library, including Transformers, Mission Impossible, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob SquarePants, and on and on and on. Given that Paramount hasn’t even been able to figure out what to do with Star Trek for the last 25 years, it shouldn’t be trusted with Batman.
But that concern is reasonably trivial compared to a new one that has come to light: At the exact same time that harsh scrutiny of Qatari influence at U.S. universities, among U.S. politicians, in international relations, on the international sports scene and even in U.S. media is increasing, the country has been unveiled as a chief backer of the Paramount bid.
This backing comes through as many as three different funding lines: the Qatar Investment Authority directly, Affinity Partners and potentially the Qatari-linked RedBird Capital. This backing was enough of a scandal that Paramount denied it in November 2025 but was forced to admit it in December. RedBird is a cooperative partner of QIA. Affinity was started with $200 million from Qataris, followed by another $1.5 billion in 2024. Wherever you look, the Paramount bid appears to be backed by a country linked to Hamas, ISIS and more.
Many people haven’t heard much about Qatar because it is wholly unremarkable except for its massive reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Qatar is able to rake in money because the U.S. Navy, at a cost of exactly zero dollars to them, keeps the Persian Gulf completely safe. If anyone were to shut the strait down, say the maniacs currently running Iran, then wealthy Gulf Coast countries (GCC) — including the United Arab Emirates — would no longer be able to ship oil out to the world.
Yet Qatar has long been accused of helping to fund anti-American terrorism. If the nation is not an outright state sponsor, then certainly prominent members of the royal family have been happy to throw their unearned billions to jihadist groups. Hamas received $1.8 billion from Qatari sources. Qatar is the chief backer of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2001, Qatar even gave safe haven to the mastermind of 9/11.
In 2017, four neighboring GCCs declared a “soft war” on Qatar. Because its network, Al Jazeera, has long spread terrorist propaganda, many Arab countries have banned it. The Saudis threatened to dig a trench in 2018 to physically cut off Qatar from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.
Why would a bid so dependent on Qatari cash make sense, in terms of U.S. interests — or those of the rest of the world? I can’t conjure any good answer, but the deal is dependent on Qatari money. The bottom line: Netflix’s market capitalization is in the $320 to $340 billion range. Paramount’s market capitalization, meanwhile, is about $7 billion. Paramount simply doesn’t have the cash to do the deal without tapping the Qataris — and so they have.
Some may say that in the era of globalization and the mass fungibility of money, international investment isn’t a big deal. But for many Americans, Qatar buying iconic American cultural properties will be seen as tantamount to cultural warfare. Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has already gotten in trouble thanks to Qatari investment in his mother’s films. Are we really to believe there will be no influence whatsoever on Warner Bros.’ content?
The bottom line: Paramount buying Warner Bros. in the current deal structure isn’t just about business — it’s about national security. Warner Bros. shareholders and U.S. officeholders should say “no” to the Paramount bid, no “ifs,” “ands” or “buts.” You shouldn’t need to be Batman to figure out this deal is terrible.