UPDATE 10/6: The merger is complete, and Skydance confirms it: the streaming services “will unify into a single service over time.”
UPDATE 10/2: Now we know who went to bat for Bloys: Matt Reeves, Mike White, and Julian Fellowes lobbied Ellison to keep him.
UPDATE 10/1: Our insiders say Harry Potter will also stream on Paramount+, not just HBO Max.
UPDATE 9/29: Cindy Holland is out at Paramount, with Bloys expected to run all streaming. Two insiders also say Bloys is playing competing offers, only exiting for a direct line to Disney’s new CEO or Netflix’s Sarandos. On the movie side, insiders say Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are staying at Warner Bros.
UPDATE 9/27: Internal docs reveal Paramount+ is adding a free tier and micro dramas, with HBO Max’s place still undecided and a WBD vet seeing a “war of the tech stacks” coming.
UPDATE 9/15: Per the same sources, Paramount is now holding meetings over the growing HBO backlash: “It’s a brand problem.” And Bloys himself now tells Deadline no Lanterns Season 2 is in development.
UPDATE 9/9: We break down what the Stuber news means for the SnyderVerse: Zack Snyder’s DC return just got a lot bigger.
HBO Max could be gone after the Paramount merger, and HBO boss Casey Bloys along with it.
A Paramount insider tells Cosmic Book News there is an unconfirmed rumor that Bloys is ready to walk after the merger, pointing to his contract, which expires in 2027.
Cosmic Book News checked with a second, longtime source, who said the talk is happening internally: Paramount needs to consolidate streaming, and there is “almost no use for HBO Max.”
The same source also dropped a name Zack Snyder fans know well.
Photograph by Presley Ann/Getty Images for WarnerMedia & Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for WarnerMedia
Image via WBD official press site
Bloys’ HBO Contract Runs Out In 2027
Bloys is Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, the executive behind Succession, The White Lotus, and The Pitt, and the boss who greenlit Lanterns, House of the Dragon, and the upcoming new Harry Potter TV series.
His last contract came in July 2022. Variety, THR, and TheWrap all confirmed the five-year deal around July 18, 2022, a week after HBO landed 140 Emmy nominations and just months after the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger created WBD.
That deal runs through 2027. No extension has been reported since.
The exit talk has been out there for months.
Back in March, Bloys was spotted having lunch with Netflix boss Ted Sarandos about a month after Netflix lost the Warner Bros. bid to Paramount, and the rumors took off from there.
Bloys brushed it off in a March interview with Variety, saying, “I have lunch with lots of people.”
Asked about staying on after the acquisition, he said that kind of talk has to wait until the deal gets closer to closing, and pointed instead to his lunch with David Ellison and the nice things Ellison said about HBO.
He didn’t announce a new deal. Six months later, there still isn’t one.
One Streaming Service, Not Two
According to the second source, the Bloys exit talk comes down to what happens after the merger closes.
“It’s something that he’s actually been talking about internally because Paramount needs to consolidate divisions, and they can’t have multiple streaming services with HBO, HBO Max, and [Paramount+],” said the source.
“There’s almost no use for HBO Max because Paramount may have shed different streaming divisions that were under the Max umbrella,” the source continued.
The math is simple. Once the deal closes, Paramount owns both Paramount+ and HBO Max, two streaming services doing the same job, with two sets of costs. Something gets folded in.
Paramount has done this before.
It folded Showtime into Paramount+ as a premium tier in 2023, shut down the standalone Showtime app in April 2024, and by 2025 had dropped the Showtime name from the tier altogether.
And there is already a name attached to running that consolidation.
“There’s talk of bringing in former Netflix exec Scott Stuber for the consolidation because he’s much like Mike De Luca, filmmaker friendly and a comic book fan,” said the source.
Stuber ran Netflix’s film division from 2017 to 2024 and built the streamer’s blockbuster slate. He left in early 2024 and signed a deal that July to relaunch the United Artists label at Amazon MGM. Two years later, no UA movie has hit theaters, and as of this spring the company was still staffing up.
HBO’s Brand Was Too Limiting For DC
The source also explained why the HBO approach doesn’t fit where DC is headed.
“Bloys was too adamant about upholding HBO’s brand of controversial prestige TV, which is too limiting for something like DC, which needs to expand to general audience, family-friendly material that can reach Spider-Man numbers,” said the source.
“Lanterns had to fit that HBO model, and James Gunn loves shock value, boundary-pushing fringe storytelling — right in his wheelhouse,” the source added.
Lanterns is that HBO model applied to Green Lantern. Season 2 still hasn’t been greenlit.
“Lanterns and Potter backlash aren’t helping,” said the Paramount insider.
Gunn’s clock is running, too. As Cosmic Book News reported, Gunn’s contract expires in 2027 following Man of Tomorrow, with no new extension in place.
Scott Stuber Is A Zack Snyder Guy
Cosmic Book News asked the source directly: Stuber is Snyder’s buddy, right?
“Yes, Stuber has always been a huge fan and friend of Zack, and Dan Lin inherited Rebel Moon when Stuber left Netflix,” the source replied.
The public record backs that up. Stuber’s Netflix is where Snyder set up Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon, and Dan Lin took over the film division — and Rebel Moon — when Stuber left in 2024.
So the name floated to run Paramount’s streaming consolidation is a comic book fan, a filmmaker-friendly exec in the De Luca mold, and a longtime Zack Snyder friend.
The Paramount insider, separately, tells Cosmic Book News: “Mike [De Luca] & Pam [Abdy] are furiously working to clean up the mess and mend fences with MANY directors & creatives who were mistreated and pushed out.”
Christopher Nolan could be among those filmmakers.
Our insiders have also said fans don’t want DC to end up at Netflix, and that Snyder’s 300 prequel series could end up at Paramount.
There Is A Plan
This lines up with what CBN’s sources have been saying for months: there is a plan.
The same Paramount insider told CBN on August 21 to keep an eye on Gal Gadot. On September 2, Gadot said it on the record: “If Zack comes back to run DC, I’ll come back.”
Paramount told the court this week that the $111 billion merger is ready to close, with the next hearing set for September 24.
Bloys’ contract runs through 2027. So does Gunn’s.
That’s exactly how it went for Warner Bros. Animation boss Sam Register last month: contract expired, no renewal, out after 18 years.
As that same insider put it earlier this month: “things will look very different in 6-12 months.”
