Don’t rush to the store looking for weed-branded sheet sets and matching bathrobes just yet.
Rumors that Disney is planning to make a $5 billion bid for hipster news outfit Vice have been making the rounds, but sources close to the edgy company denied them.
The Mouse House, through its A&E Networks (co-owned with Hearst), already owns 15 percent piece of Vice — to go alone with a 9 percent slice it directly owns.
Vice, the news and documentary company founded by Shane Smith that famously started as an alternative magazine in Canada, has had no shortage of interest and is busy growing around the globe.
Disney appears to be trying to figure out a way to chase young people wherever they are. It acquired Maker, a producer and distributor of online content, for $675 million two years ago, but recently sold out of Univision’s Latino-flavored news channel Fusion.
Other Vice stakeholders alongside the Bob Iger-led company include WPP Group and 21st Century Fox.
Disney unit A&E Networks in 2015 paid $250 million for an almost 10 percent stake in Vice, valuing the business at $2.5 billion. It operates the Vice-branded cable channel, Viceland.
Iger is looking to grab valuable media content, a source said.
Vice declined to comment. A Disney spokesman also declined to comment.