One big bidder (Silver Lake) taps out of Hulu’s billion-dollar bidding war

Hollywood heavy hitter Silver Lake has reportedly bailed out of a bidding war on Hulu. The final bids are supposed to roll in today.

Anonymous sources for All Things D said the private-equity firm check-fold maneuver wasn’t unpredictable.

Remaining bidders may include DirectTV, Time Warner Cable, and Yahoo. Another recent bid came from a joint venture between AT&T and the Chernin Group, led by former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

Last month, we heard rumors that the bidding may have gotten as high as or higher than a cool billion dollars.

Of course, the rumor mill has been churning on this sale for quite some time — two entire dadgum years, to be exact. Back then, a Carol Bartz-led Yahoo reportedly made an offer on the property.

It’s unknown whether current Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who’s already been on something of an acquisition streak, is willing to follow through on that long-ago bid, but back in May, sources said the company had offered between $600 million and $800 million.