Paramount Warner Bros: Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg to lead film unit; Preparing for the likely exit of Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy

The soon-to-be-merged Paramount Warner Bros. Motion Picture unit under the new Skydance label will be led by current Paramount Motion Picture co-presidents Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, according to multiple sources.

This comes after a sleepless night for Warner Bros. motion picture presidents Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, who we hear first learned they weren’t making the jump to the new company from last night’s reports. We understand that Paramount co-CEO David Ellison never called them about their future and whether or not there was a job offer in the works. The news comes at a difficult time, as Warner Bros faces an epic failure in the Tom Cruise film, priced at $125-160 million and counting, with Alejandro Iñárritu’s social satire, Excavator, which is expected to open to around $30 million WW or less this weekend.

De Luca and Abdy have worked at Warner Bros. since June 2022, when they left MGM following Amazon’s acquisition of the famous studio. The duo recently renewed their contracts under WBD CEO David Zaslav through 2030. Key to their future under the new Paramount Warner Bros is whether or not Ellison will continue to honor their current terms, which would hold Warner Bros’ marketing and distribution departments accountable. On the face of it, these are difficult terms for Ellison, who does the math, to honor. He is a loyal supporter of his production colleague Goldberg of 16 years and of his longtime friend Greenstein, who led the film unit into financially reasonable shape following the old Paramount.

Paramount will inherit a combined slate of about 71 feature films dated through 2028, 56% of those generated by De Luca and Abdy’s Warner Bros. There’s even more to be released by both studios in 2028. Paramount will also get a library of films that includes the slate of $4.37 billion in global revenue for 2025 that De Luca and Abdy built as well as the Oscar winners. One battle after another, sinners (until the rights to this film reverted to its director Ryan Coogler) and Weapons. Additionally, the new Paramount is eyeing a potentially profitable $1 billion year-end tentpole in the Warner Bros/Legendary film. Dune: Part Three.

There appears to be discussion over De Luca and Abdy’s exact role in the new entity, however, the duo has not been hired to report to other cinema presidents, but rather to the CEO. According to sources, reporting to Greenstein and Goldberg does not appear to be a likely scenario for the duo. De Luca and Abdy could be offered a production deal at the new Skydance.

The executive board of the new Paramount Warner Bros should be announced in a few days. Ellison has recruited former Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz as co-CEO. “Ellison will focus on the long-term strategy, creative vision and direction of the company, including its talent relationships, strategic partnerships, technology and capital allocation,” Paramount said. “Kreiz will focus on the day-to-day management of the business and the integration of the combined businesses. »

There was an optimistic buzz on Thursday that De Luca and Abdy would also have access rights to the Melrose pitch and could report to Kreiz, but that is not the likely scenario.

Additionally, at the new Paramount Warner Bros., Casey Bloys was recently named head of streaming for Paramount-WBD combined with the departure of Paramount’s current President of Direct-to-Consumer, Cindy Holland. Mark Thompson was told he would stay on to oversee CNN in the future.

While De Luca and Abdy had a great run at the box office last year, this year has been riddled with a myriad of misses, including The Bride, Supergirl no film grossing more than $100 million in the United States. The total domestic box office from January 1 to October 1. 1 represents $448.4 million. However, Paramount hasn’t had a great year at the box office either, their current year-to-date domestic box office just behind Warners with $429.8 million, however, they did have two domestic titles grossing over $100 million in 2017. Scream 7 and Miramax Scary movie.

At the North American box office since the start of the year, the new Paramount Warner Bros would total $878.2 million, behind Universal ($1.8 billion), Disney ($1.55 billion) and Sony ($1.28 billion).

Under De Luca and Abdy, Warner Bros. racked up 30 nominations earlier this year, which tied the studio’s record from 2005. Warners has won 11 of those Oscars (six, including Best Picture for One battle after anotherfour for Sinners, and the victory of actress Amy Madigan for Weapons). Both men had a reputation for protecting the vision of filmmakers and were bold in financing arthouse projects like Paul Thomas Anderson’s most expensive film, the $140 million film. One battle after another and Coogler’s $90 million period vampire musical Sinners. One battle after another ended up being Anderson’s highest-grossing film of all time, grossing over $213 million at the worldwide box office, although film funding sources questioned its profitability. Sinners was a big success grossing nearly $372 million WW.

De Luca and Abdy presided over MGM from January 2020 to April 2022. There, they built a roster that helped fuel the studio’s $8.45 billion sale to Amazon for the 4,000-title library. During their time there, theatrical releases included No time to die, Maison Gucci, That of Paul Thomas Anderson Licorice pizza, without forgetting that they train Creed III, which became the most profitable of this franchise and the second most profitable of the Rocky franchise.

Paramount could not be reached for comment.