Paramount closes $110 billion deal with Warner Brothers Discovery: The new company is called Skydance

The entity Skydance will be led by tech scion David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz, formerly the top executive at Mattel.Paramount's purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, which Hollywood spent most of 2026 treating as either inevitable or illegal, depending on who was paying for the lunch, is done. The parent company will be called Skydance, and David Ellison will run it alongside his incoming co-CEO Ynon Kreiz. Ellison simply reused the name of Skydance Media, his original film production company, as the umbrella for everything being folded into the new conglomerate. Paramount and Warner Bros. themselves survive as brands under that umbrella, keeping their logos on their films, much as Universal sits under Comcast.The road here was not short. Paramount offered $31 a share in cash, valuing Warner's equity at $81 billion and the whole transaction at $110 billion once debt is counted. Netflix had got there first, with a $27.75-a-share agreement for the studio and streaming assets, but when the price rose its co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters told Warner the deal was no longer financially attractive and walked away. Then came a lawsuit from twelve states. On September 30, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved Paramount's settlement with them, and the price of that settlement is worth reading closely. The combined company must release at least 30 theatrical films a year for two years and 32 for the following three, pay a $30 million penalty for every film it falls short, and honour 45-day theatrical windows. It must also set up an independent editorial board to oversee CNN and CBS News. Rarely has a merger been approved on the condition that it behave like two companies.Which brings us to Kreiz, the most interesting hire in Hollywood this year. At Mattel since 2018, he turned toy brands into films, TV shows and games, and delivered "Barbie," the highest-grossing film Warner Bros. has ever had. The man who rented Warner its biggest hit now gets the keys to the building. He will oversee daily operations and the combined businesses, while Ellison leads strategy, creative and technology. Ellison, in short, keeps the vision and hands Kreiz the spreadsheet.That spreadsheet is not a gentle one. Paramount is aiming for more than $6 billion in savings from the merger, and Kreiz's turnaround at Mattel included job cuts. To fund the purchase, Paramount is issuing about $42.4 billion in bonds and taking out a further $8.5 billion and €850 million in loans. Three Middle Eastern funds will own 38.5% of the merged company, according to Paramount. The leadership reshuffle has already begun: Warner Bros. Pictures chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy will not be part of Ellison's team.Ellison describes Skydance as "a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling." The settlement, with its film quotas and per-title fines, suggests that twelve state attorneys general were not entirely prepared to take his word for it.(With wire inputs)You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.