Paramount Completes $110 Billion Warner Bros Takeover to Form Hollywood Giant Skydance

A blockbuster deal closes

Paramount Skydance has completed its blockbuster $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, creating a Hollywood heavyweight called Skydance and handing chief executive David Ellison control of one of the world's largest entertainment companies. The deal closed on Tuesday after a settlement with a coalition of US states removed the final legal barriers to one of the largest mergers in media history.

"Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry," Ellison said in a statement announcing the completion. The transaction brings together the studios behind Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and the DC Universe alongside major television and streaming networks including CBS, CNN, Paramount+ and HBO Max, forming an entertainment company spanning film, television and news. Shares of the combined company moved from the Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday to trade under the new ticker "SKYD".

The closing caps a bruising, months-long contest for control of Warner Bros Discovery that drew in Netflix and Comcast and triggered an antitrust lawsuit from a dozen state attorneys general. According to Reuters, the merger arrives as Hollywood grapples with declining cable-TV subscriptions, the high cost of competing for streaming audiences and persistent pressure from unions over jobs and creative workers' rights. The original BBC report on the completion confirmed the deal's $110 billion value and the Skydance rebrand. For readers following the biggest deals in the industry, our business coverage tracks every major development.

!The Hollywood sign overlooking Los Angeles, California The Hollywood sign overlooking Los Angeles — the merger reshapes an industry already under strain. Image: Thomas Wolf / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

What the combined company now owns

The new Skydance controls an extraordinary sweep of entertainment assets. On the film side it unites two of the five largest Hollywood studios, bringing franchises including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, the DC Universe, Mission: Impossible, Top Gun, The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings and Yellowstone under one roof. The Nickelodeon children's empire and the Showtime premium cable brand are part of the portfolio as well.

In television and streaming, the company now owns two major subscription services — Paramount+ and HBO Max — alongside broadcast and cable networks including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central and the Food Network. As TechCrunch noted, the combination puts two of the world's biggest streaming platforms under single ownership at a moment when the streaming wars are entering a more punishing, cost-conscious phase. The deal also extends Skydance's reach internationally: in the UK it will control assets including Channel 5 and TNT Sports.

Ellison said last week that the Skydance name was deliberately chosen to preserve the individual identities of the Paramount and Warner Bros studios rather than folding them into a single new brand. Analysts, however, read the choice differently — as a signal of how completely some of Hollywood's most storied brands now answer to the 43-year-old son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Skydance was founded only in 2010 and built its reputation financing Paramount blockbusters such as Top Gun: Maverick before merging with Paramount itself last year. Cinema lovers can also read our review coverage of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and our tribute to the late Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas.

The legal battle that nearly killed it

The path to closing was anything but smooth. Paramount announced in February that it would acquire Warner Bros Discovery after triumphing over Netflix in a lengthy bidding battle. Netflix had previously reached an agreement to purchase Warner Bros' film and television studios and streaming business — excluding its cable networks — before Paramount launched a rival bid for the entire company. Paramount sweetened its offer by promising shareholders additional cash if the deal failed to close by a specified deadline and agreeing to cover the breakup fee Warner Bros would owe Netflix for walking away from that agreement.

Regulators then intervened. Twelve Democratic-led state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta, sued in July to block the merger, arguing it would weaken competition in theatrical film distribution and cable television, and briefly won a court order halting the deal. The states contended the combined company would control roughly 27 percent of wide-release theatrical distribution. In September the two sides reached a settlement, which US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved — clearing the final legal hurdle, as detailed by TV Tonight.

The consent decree imposes unusually specific operating conditions rather than forcing asset sales. The merged company must release at least 30 feature films theatrically in each of its first two years, rising to at least 32 a year in years three to five, with a 45-day theatrical window for wide releases. It must invest at least an additional $300 million a year — $1.5 billion over five years — in US film production, and it is barred from selling the historic Paramount Studios or Warner Bros lots in California for at least five years. A dedicated news editorial independence board will set guiding journalism principles for both CBS News and CNN, and a $47.5 million workforce support pool was created alongside a separate Writers Guild pledge protecting CBS News jobs for five years. Bonta said the settlement included "court enforceable guardrails" to protect competition, consumer choice and domestic film production. The Daily Caller reported that Hollywood actors including Jane Fonda and Mark Ruffalo had publicly urged regulators to stop the deal, with thousands of industry professionals signing an April letter opposing it. The saga echoes other recent UK deal drama, such as BT's £400 million rescue of TalkTalk.

Who is running the new Skydance

Paramount unveiled the combined company's leadership team on Monday, blending executives from both sides. David Ellison will serve as chairman and chief executive, focusing on long-term strategy, creative vision, talent relationships and capital allocation. Ynon Kreiz, the outgoing chief executive of Mattel, joins as co-CEO with responsibility for day-to-day management and the integration of the two businesses. Andy Gordon, Paramount's chief strategy and operating officer, becomes president, and finance chief Dennis Cinelli keeps his role.

The news divisions received particular attention given the settlement's editorial safeguards. Mark Thompson, the former BBC director general, will remain chairman and editor-in-chief of CNN Worldwide, while Bari Weiss continues as editor-in-chief of CBS News; both will report directly to Ellison and Kreiz. On the content side, HBO chief Casey Bloys becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance's direct-to-consumer business, overseeing HBO Max and Paramount+. George Cheeks takes the equivalent role for television, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein co-chair the motion picture group, and James Gunn and Peter Safran remain in place at DC Studios. JB Perrette, who ran global streaming and games for Warner Bros Discovery, co-chairs both the TV and streaming divisions. Outgoing Warner Bros Discovery chief David Zaslav is expected to depart following the close, according to industry reporting on the appointments.

What it means for Hollywood — and what comes next

The merger lands in an industry already anxious about consolidation. Hollywood's unions opposed the deal from the start, fearing job losses as overlapping businesses are eliminated, and industry insiders expect multiple rounds of layoffs and back-office consolidation even as the settlement funds workforce protections. The combined company must also manage nearly $80 billion in debt while meeting its binding theatrical-release calendar — a heavy financial load at a time when the economics of streaming remain unforgiving, as the Business Times detailed.

There are also open questions about how the news operations will work in practice. CNN and CBS News will share a corporate parent for the first time, and while both are expected to keep operating separately for now, critics have questioned whether an editorial board appointed under a consent decree can genuinely insulate newsrooms from the preferences of their owners. The Wall Street Journal reported that the exact authority of the new editorial boards has yet to be clearly spelled out.

For now, the focus turns to execution: integrating two century-old studios, hitting the film-production quotas written into the settlement, and proving that a bigger Skydance can thrive where so many media mergers have stumbled. With the stock now trading as SKYD on the New York Stock Exchange, investors — and Hollywood — will be watching closely. The deal's sheer scale dwarfs most recent corporate moves, though the industry has seen other mega-bets this year, from TSMC's $100 billion US chip expansion to the AI wealth boom reshaping San Francisco housing. Continuing coverage of the fallout will appear on Verity's homepage and in the business section.