Paramount Closes $110 Billion Warner Bros. Deal, Creating Media Giant Skydance

Paramount Skydance is completing its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios and two of the country’s best-known news organizations under a single company that will be called Skydance.

David Ellison, the company’s chief executive and chairman, will run the combined business with Ynon Kreiz, the former chief executive of Mattel, as co-executive. In a statement reported by NPR, Ellison said his aim from the start had been to unite the two studios into a stronger competitor that tells stories in every genre and on every platform.

The new company brings together Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, both more than 100 years old, along with the streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max, cable networks including MTV, Comedy Central and the Food Network, and the newsrooms of CBS News and CNN. Ellison has said the combined film library holds about 15,000 titles, from Harry Potter and the DC universe to Top Gun and The Godfather. The merger leaves four of the traditional major studios standing, alongside Disney, Universal and Sony.

The deal followed a bidding war with Netflix and months of legal fights. Regulators approved it in June, but California, New York and 10 other states sued, arguing it would smother competition and mean fewer films in theaters and at home. Under a settlement announced last month, Skydance must release at least 30 films a year and, according to the Guardian, more than 180 television shows, with a trustee monitoring compliance. The settlement also creates a single five-member News Editorial Independence Board, appointed by Skydance’s board, to oversee both CBS News and CNN; it is not required to publish its findings. California Attorney General Rob Bonta told NPR at the time that the settlement was not a vote of support for the merger. A separate challenge by the Writers Guild of America was also settled in September.

Ellison argues that the combination is pro-competitive, pro-consumer and good for the broader creative economy, and that it gives two storied studios a more powerful engine. He controls the company with backing from his father, the Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and from investors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries, NPR reported.

The future of CNN has drawn the most public concern. Both Ellisons are allies of President Trump, and after acquiring Paramount last year David Ellison installed Bari Weiss, the founder of The Free Press, as head of CBS News, a move that critics say has tilted the network’s coverage. Jessica González, co-chief executive of a nonprofit media advocacy organization, told NPR the group is worried about the Ellisons corrupting CNN. CNN’s chief executive, Mark Thompson, said Monday that he would stay on and that he had confidence the new owners understand and will support independent journalism.

Leadership changes have already begun. Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, who ran Warner Bros. Pictures and celebrated best picture wins last year, are leaving. The studio’s last release as a standalone company, the Tom Cruise dark comedy “Digger,” took in just $8 million in the United States and Canada on its opening weekend, Khaleej Times reported.