David Ellison emerged victorious. And he boldly — or arrogantly, if you prefer — decided to name the entertainment giant he merged Skydance Corp., nodding to the original name of his film production company that has gobbled up two Hollywood studios in the past 14 months.
Defying skeptics and fending off naysayers, Ellison harpooned his white whale by purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery. Now he must prove that the $111 billion mega-merger can become a profitable entertainment powerhouse, not just a ship that will be sucked into a massive debt vortex.
As the deal’s closing — scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 6 — became a certainty, entertainment industry insiders began to wake up to the reality that Greater Corporation is a new and unpredictable force in the city. The deal has polarized the creative community, with many bold-faced names publicly expressing their opposition to the merger. The new management team that Skydance is assembling under the leadership of Ellison and Ynon Kreiz, just recruited from Mattel to serve as co-CEOs, must navigate this dynamic. And they must do it by walking a tightrope on Wall Street to pay down debt and increase profits in film, linear television and streaming.
“They need to act as quickly as possible to reduce leverage,” says Jawad Hussain, managing director of S&P Global. “The biggest hurdle and the biggest thing we’re going to keep an eye on is integration and execution.” Two years ago, Hussain says, Skydance Meida was a small company that produced a few films a year. “Now she’s running one of the biggest media companies. That’s not necessarily an easy task.”
It’s all been a whirlwind. On the morning of September 30, Ellison still didn’t know if the deal was done.
He had spent more than a year in his relentless quest to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO. WBD’s board of directors rejected his takeover offers eight times. David Zaslav, the boss of Warner Bros. Discovery ghosted Ellison in December 2025 after Netflix struck a deal for WB’s streaming and studio businesses. But Ellison did not surrender; it finally outbid Netflix in February, with an offer of $31/share, almost 2.5 times the stock price before the M&A frenzy began. It was an offer WBD couldn’t refuse.
Ellison and his legal team, led by former DOJ official Makan Delrahim, predicted that the proposed Paramount-WB combo would easily win regulatory approvals. In June, Trump’s Justice Department approved the deal without attaching conditions. In total, regulators in 68 jurisdictions around the world cleared the merger with minimal resistance.
The last barricade in Ellison’s way? An antitrust lawsuit brought by 12 Democratic attorneys general, led by Rob Bonta of California. Ellison believed the litigation was politically motivated, fueled by fears that he was trying to turn CNN into a pro-Trump mouthpiece. (He repeatedly promised not to intervene in CNN’s news coverage.) But the attorneys general pressed their case, and a federal judge acknowledged that their arguments — that Paramount-Warner Bros. would exercise excessive power in the movie theater and basic cable markets – were founded. A trial was scheduled to begin in March 2027.
Frustrated and incredulous, Ellison leaked to the press in August that he would pull Paramount out of California if the state’s AGs did not let him complete the deal with WB. Paramount insiders continue to insist that the idea that Ellison’s exit from Golden State was not a bluff or a threat. Bonta, seeming to realize that he would gain no political capital by derailing or delaying the merger, relented. Paramount and the AGs announced a settlement of the lawsuit on September 21 – with a list of concessions so lenient that it surprised not only industry observers but also employees of both companies.
All that remained now was for the judge to approve the settlement. What’s concerning for Ellison is that U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin, during a Sept. 24 hearing, left the door open for a possible new third-party review of the settlement at the request of Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). The groups behind the #BlockTheMerger coalition, which had gathered more than 5,700 signatories from actors, filmmakers and industry workers opposed to the deal, filed a brief with the court urging Martínez-Olguín to reject the deal.
But on September 30, shortly after 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time, the judge made her decision: she had approved the settlement.
The proposed consent decree, Martínez-Olguin wrote, reflects a “compromise that may leave some dissatisfaction on both sides and the public, but one that avoids the risks, time and expense of litigation.”
Boom! Teams from both companies swung into action to make the final preparations needed to close the deal. That evening, Paramount and WBD confirmed the merger’s expected closing date of October 6, when Paramount’s common stock will move from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange. The stock symbol will change from “PSKY” to “SKYD,” reflecting the company name Skydance.
Ellison is expected to lead a town hall meeting with employees next Tuesday, and Ellison and Kreiz are expected to host a virtual press conference – along with Skydance’s new executive leadership – at 7 p.m. ET on October 6.
Coincidentally, on September 30, Ellison was sitting on his own hot news: He was ready to announce that he had recruited media veteran Kreiz to be co-CEO of the Paramount-WBD combination. The operations of the combined entity will be jointly managed by Ellison and Kreiz.
News of Kreiz’s arrival at Paramount broke earlier today, but Ellison had already decided to wait until after market close to announce it. Paramount released the statement at 1:06 p.m., a little more than half an hour after the judge approved the antitrust settlement.
Ellison triumphantly sent Paramount employees a company-wide email regarding Kreiz’s hiring, time-stamped 1:18 p.m., praising the executive as a “proven builder and operator.” Kreiz, during his eight years at Mattel, had helped cut costs through layoffs — and oversaw its first theatrical release, the 2023 blockbuster “Barbie.” He returned the company to profitability, but revenue has remained stubbornly flat over the past four years.
Ellison wrote in his email: “Together, we are well positioned to integrate, operationalize and manage the businesses as we build one of the most ambitious next-generation media companies in the industry’s history. Kreiz, as part of his compensation package, will receive $31.5 million in fully vested stock as a signing bonus upon closing of the merger.
Then, on Friday, October 2, Ellison shared on X that the new company would be…Skydance. His message included a sizzling reel of the combined company’s greatest hits, beginning with a clip from “Titanic” — an inauspicious choice, perhaps, given how that infamous voyage unfolded.
“Paramount and Warner Bros. have shaped more than a century of culture,” Ellison wrote. “By combining them, we’re not rewriting history – we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative home above all for bold, quality storytelling.”
Three years ago, Ellison was known primarily as a rich kid — a descendant of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people — and a producer of blockbuster films, most notably with 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which grossed $1.5 billion at the box office. Now, after putting Warner Bros. in the bag, he can claim to be a titan in the sector and not just a nepo baby.
“Ellison scorned the attorneys general and won. He scorned the unions and won,” says Professor Erik Gordon of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “You can no longer see David Ellison as a daddy’s boy. He is a formidable force in the industry.”
The Paramount-WBD merger is the largest M&A deal in Hollywood history. It brings together two of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios, streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+, and television brands including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, Food Network and more. The new company’s entertainment franchises span Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and other HBO hits, DC’s superhero universe, “Yellowstone,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Top Gun” and Nickelodeon’s children’s empire.
“We still have work to do before the deal closes, and nothing will change until it does,” Ellison told employees in his memo about Kreiz.
But even before the deal closed, the company’s new direction was taking shape. Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, co-heads of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, will exit after the merger, sources said. Variety. Paramount movie executives Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein are set to oversee both movie studios.
Once the deal is done, Zaslav is expected to leave – with a boatload of cash. Zaslav stands to earn at least $550 million in stock and cash once the Paramount-WBD deal closes, including $34.2 million in cash severance, under the terms of his “golden parachute” program.
Skydance’s regulatory obligations regarding theatrical films and the operation of its Paramount and Warner Bros. cable channels. will undoubtedly have market ripple effects that extend well beyond the United States. Showbiz executives in Europe have been closely monitoring the deal at a time when local language production is at its peak thanks to the influence of Netflix, Amazon and Disney+. HBO has a growing international presence that will be crucial to Skydance’s future growth.
Pierre-Antoine Capton, president of French company Mediawan, says the entire film and television sector is facing difficult years amid what he calls “a period of intense…
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