Paramount Appoints New Studio Leaders Ahead of $110B Warner Bros Merger

Paramount Skydance (PSKY) CEO David Ellison is installing his own film leadership ahead of the company's roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), according to Bloomberg. Paramount Pictures co-chairs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg will take operational oversight of Warner Bros. Pictures once the transaction completes, and Deadline reported that the pair is set to run the combined film unit.

The move ends the tenure of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, who will not join the merged company despite having renewed their contracts last year. DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran are expected to move over to Paramount under existing contracts that run through April 2027. Bloomberg reported a goal of releasing 30 theatrical films a year from the combined studios, with DC as a central growth engine.

The deal itself has cleared its last hurdle. On September 30, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved Paramount's settlement with a group of state attorneys general, and Paramount has tentatively set October 6 as the closing date. The combined company is to be renamed Skydance Corp., with Mattel's departing CEO Ynon Kreiz joining as co-CEO alongside Ellison. Bloomberg and NBC News value the takeover at $110 billion, while Variety puts it at $111 billion.

What to watch: whether the deal closes on schedule, the broader leadership structure, which is expected to be announced in the coming days, and whether the Warner Bros. film slate and talent relationships hold steady through the handover. PSKY closed up 1.7% on Friday, according to Stocktwits, and is down about 30% this year.