Hollywood's biggest competition this year isn't at the box office, it's in the Warner Bros. Discovery board room.

State of play: A trio of Hollywood power players submitted bids to buy all or part of WBD Thursday, launching what is sure to be a dramatic and historic media merger fight.

Why it matters: In a hyper-competitive streaming environment, scale matters. And assets like WBD, which includes the nation's top-performing movie studio so far this year (Warner Bros. Pictures) and a prestige streamer (HBO Max), don't come up for grabs often.

Driving the news: WBD's board set a Thursday deadline for takeover bids and received three different propositions, sources confirmed to Axios. • Paramount, which already owns a top movie studio (Paramount Pictures), a major streamer (Paramount+),

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