Deal timing and who's in the driver's seat
According to people familiar, David Ellison intends to seat a handpicked leadership team over the enlarged film operation after the Warner Bros. Discovery transaction closes next week. The merged company will be called Skydance Corp. Paramount declined to comment when asked by Bloomberg.
Paramount Pictures leaders Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein will take charge of Warner Bros. Pictures after closing, the people said. Despite contract renewals last October tied to a turnaround at Warner Bros., Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy will not be part of the merged company.
DC strategy gets a green light
Ellison met Thursday with DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran, who oversee a roster that includes characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. The pair, who are guiding a plan to refresh the DC label over the next decade, will join Paramount, the people said. Their current agreements run until April 2027.
At the start of this year, Ellison visited the Atlanta set of DC's Superman sequel. During that trip, DC presented its strategy to Paramount leadership, including Chief Financial Officer Dennis Cinelli and Chief Strategy Officer Andy Gordon. Ellison backed Gunn and Safran's vision and views DC as central to his push to release 30 theatrical films per year across the two studios. Ellison is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
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Box office scorecard and why it matters to you
Paramount has banked some recent wins with Scream 7, Scary Movie and Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie. On the Warner Bros. side, several titles including The End of Oak Street and The Bride! did not turn a profit in theaters, while the most profitable Warner Bros. releases so far this year came from New Line, the unit run by Richard Brener. On Friday, Warner Bros. released Digger.
All of this adds up to a simple takeaway for your wallet: the people greenlighting projects and setting release slates are changing, and that can shape how often hits show up, how reliably cash flows in, and how the combined studio invests across big franchises versus smaller bets.
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