UPDATE 7: Our WB sources weigh in: the firing was a surprise to everybody, even internally, and the merger couldn’t afford risks like Digger.
UPDATE 6: The official word is in: Skydance’s leadership team puts Goldberg and Greenstein over both Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., and leaves De Luca and Abdy off.
UPDATE 5: Our take on the firings and the first week of the new company: Ellison’s Skydance is off to an alarming start.
UPDATE 4: THR adds the pair “met with David months ago and felt secure.” Insiders say they were dealing with the wrong Ellison.
UPDATE 3: A Paramount insider says who made the call: Larry Ellison and Ynon Kreiz chose Goldberg and Greenstein over De Luca and Abdy.
UPDATE 2: Deadline confirms the report and says De Luca and Abdy could be offered a producing contract at the combined company.
UPDATE: The DC side of the story: James Gunn and Peter Safran keep running DC, for now.
Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are out at Warner Bros.
The two executives who have run the Warner Bros. movie studio since 2022 will not be joining the merged Paramount Warner Bros., reports Puck’s Matthew Belloni, citing two well-placed sources.
Per the report, the decision has been made but has not been formally communicated. David Ellison still has to make the calls, and Belloni says those need to happen by Tuesday morning, when the merger closes.
Paramount declined to comment to Belloni. De Luca, reached by phone, also declined to comment to Belloni.
The report landed the same night David Zaslav threw his farewell party in Beverly Hills, with De Luca and Abdy among the guests alongside DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Zaslav walks away from the merger with up to $800 million in bonuses and stock.
Paramount’s Josh Greenstein And Dana Goldberg Take Over
Belloni reports Ellison is elevating Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, the pair currently running the Paramount movie studio, to oversee both studios and the 30 movies a year Paramount has promised.
A new executive will be hired from the outside or promoted from within to run Warner Bros. under them. De Luca and Abdy will be paid out through 2030.
Greenstein and Goldberg are known for singles and doubles, not big swings. Their Paramount slate leans on franchise plays like Scream 7, Scary Movie, a new World War Z, and a Call of Duty movie.
The timing could not be worse for De Luca and Abdy. Warner Bros. has yet to put out a $100 million domestic movie in 2026 after a summer that saw its box office down 76%, and the studio’s final release before the merger closes is Digger.
The $160 million Tom Cruise climate satire debuted at 52% on Rotten Tomatoes and is tracking toward an opening in the low teens or even single digits.
Belloni notes Digger could end up making less in the U.S. than Coyote vs. Acme, the movie Warner Bros. shelved for a tax write-off, which has since earned $58 million for Ketchup Entertainment.
At Monday’s Digger premiere, Cruise thanked De Luca and Abdy for saying yes to the movie on the spot. “You didn’t even take a breath,” Cruise told them.
That is exactly the kind of bet Belloni says is going away. Ellison just confirmed Bradley Cooper as Duke in G.I. Joe, and per the report, he wants a Tom Cruise movie too. He wants Days of Thunder 2, not Digger.
‘They Would Never Work For Josh And Dana’
The Greenstein and Goldberg scenario is one De Luca and Abdy already ruled out. A Warner Bros. executive tells Page Six the pair have made it known “they would never work for Josh and Dana.”
Per the Page Six report, De Luca and Abdy have already soft-floated their services to Netflix and Sony ahead of the merger, and multiple sources say Abdy was recently spotted meeting with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos.
Neither studio has an open film chief job right now. Dan Lin runs film at Netflix and Tom Rothman runs Sony, though Page Six notes talk around town that the 71-year-old Rothman’s current deal could be his last. De Luca ran production at Sony’s Columbia Pictures from 2013 to 2015.
The pair’s Warner Bros. deals were re-upped in October 2025 after the studio’s Best Picture win for One Battle After Another. “That never stopped anybody from getting someone out,” one top agent tells Page Six.
There is also a theory, per the outlet, that Abdy could move to Clockwork, the auteur label Warner Bros. just launched. She and De Luca were front and center at a Clockwork party at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, a festival that had no Warner Bros. movie in it.
James Gunn And Peter Safran Invited To Stay ‘At Least Initially’
Here is the line DC fans will care about. Belloni reports Gunn and Safran “will be invited to stay on at DC, at least initially.”
At least initially.
That matches what CBN’s insiders have said for months: Gunn’s contract expires in 2027 following Man of Tomorrow, with no new extension in place, while Ellison puts together his own plans for DC.
Our Sources Said They Stay
Belloni’s report runs opposite to what CBN’s own sources said just days ago.
Last week, a Paramount source and a WBD source both told CBN De Luca and Abdy stick around, calling the pair too valuable and pointing to a track record Ellison knows well.
Belloni, for his part, says the decision is made even though the calls have not happened.
Deadline confirmed the report Friday morning, with multiple sources saying Greenstein and Goldberg are poised to run the combined movie unit.
Per Deadline, De Luca and Abdy learned they were not making the jump from the overnight reports themselves, following a sleepless night. Ellison never called.
Deadline also gets at the why. The pair’s deals have Warner Bros. marketing and distribution reporting into them, answering only to the CEO, and the outlet says those were tough terms for Ellison to honor. Its sources agree that reporting into Greenstein and Goldberg is not a likely scenario for the two.
What is on the table instead, per Deadline: a producing contract at the combined company, which Ellison revealed will be named Skydance. Talks are underway about what their role will be.
Whatever happens, the new studio inherits their work. Paramount takes on a combined slate of about 71 dated movies through 2028, and De Luca and Abdy’s Warner Bros. supplied 56 percent of it.
The official word comes within days. The leadership announcements are expected early next week. The merger closes Tuesday. And Ellison rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange next Thursday with his new co-CEO, Ynon Kreiz.
