Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are missing at Warner Bros, says insider The Hollywood Reporter.
News of the movie chiefs’ impending departure comes as Paramount Skydance prepares for its historic $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. The super studio owned by David Ellison is now simply called Skydance, and the merger is expected to be finalized on October 6.
Paramount movie executives Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein are expected to oversee both movie studios. Abdy and De Luca reportedly told associates that they were in talks for a possible next act at Netflix.
De Luca and Abdy’s tenure at the helm of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group debuted in 2022 and has been marked by ups and downs. Highs include box office hits like Minecraft movie ($960 million worldwide) and that of Ryan Coogler Sinners ($370 million worldwide), as well as pivotal achievements like last year’s Best Picture Oscar for Paul Thomas Anderson. One battle after another and other victories for Sinners. The misses included expensive swings like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! and Tom Cruise starring Excavatorwhich is expected to open this weekend to a dismal $8-15 million on a budget of over $125 million.
De Luca and Abdy have joined Warner Bros. after leaving MGM, where they oversaw that legendary studio’s film selection for two years until its acquisition in 2022 for $8.5 billion by Amazon Prime Video. At Warners, they inherited a slate from the previous regime, led by Toby Emmerich, that included Legendary’s Dune franchise and box office success barbiewith Bong Joon Ho Mickey 17 and Robert De Niro with The Knights of Altothe latter having personally received the green light from the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav.
As for their own auspices, the duo is known for being director-friendly, offering big studio (and big studio budgets) to filmmakers like Anderson, Coogler, Alejandro Iñárritu, and Emerald Fennell. The auteur-driven titles have been shaken up by a series of IP games and franchise offerings, mostly coming from the studio’s New Line division, De Luca’s longtime stomping ground, as the well-received Final destination restart and Conjuring slice.
The departures of De Luca and Abdy come amid a flurry of other announcements from executives at the soon-to-be-merged studio. Earlier this week, Cindy Holland left her role as head of streaming at Paramount Skydance, with HBO boss Casey Bloys set to lead all streaming efforts at the combined studios. Also this week, it was announced that Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz would become co-CEO with Ellison.
Puck first reported the news of De Luca and Abdy’s exit.
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