UPDATE 6: Ellison and Kreiz reveal in their Day One memo to employees that WarnerParamount, ParaWarner, and ParamountWarner were all considered and rejected.
UPDATE 5: It’s official: the Skydance merger is complete, with the stock now trading under the ticker SKYD.
UPDATE 4: Ellison and Kreiz have named their leadership team for Skydance, with Gunn and Safran running DC Studios and Casey Bloys in charge of streaming content.
UPDATE 3: Ellison calls Skydance “creative-first.” The company’s alarming first week says otherwise.
UPDATE 2: Bloomberg confirms Goldberg and Greenstein take over Warner Bros. Pictures, with Gunn and Safran’s DC contracts expiring in April 2027.
UPDATE: Per THR, the DC bullet also sits in the top tier of the Skydance logo constellation, as Gunn and Safran were told to “keep doing what you’re doing”.
David Ellison announced Friday that the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. company will be named Skydance.
“What once was the peak, is now just the beginning,” Ellison wrote on X, a nod to the Paramount mountain. “Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture.”
“By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history,” he continued. “We’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
The announcement comes days before the $111 billion merger is expected to close. A judge signed off on Paramount’s settlement with California and the other states on September 30, clearing the last hurdle.
Paramount And Warner Bros. Stay In The Spotlight
Ellison said the name was picked to protect both studio brands, not replace them.
“We wanted to preserve what has made each of these studios iconic,” he wrote. “Both have distinct identities, extraordinary legacies and brands that have resonated with audiences for generations. We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one.”
The Skydance name gives the combined company “an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros., and all our extraordinary brands, to remain in the spotlight.”
So Paramount and Warner Bros. continue as the movie studios. Skydance is the corporate name above them.
Ellison promised “passion, imagination and a willingness to take smart risks,” saying both studios will get “the opportunity to grow, tell more great stories and bring those stories to even broader audiences around the world, powered by the scale and capabilities of Skydance.”
“I couldn’t be more excited about what we’re going to build together,” he added.
The combined company is set to release 35 movies next year, the most of any studio since at least 2000, per Rentrak data cited by CNBC.
The Announcement Video Leads With Superman And Batman
Ellison’s post includes a video montage of the two studios’ movies and shows, and the footage is heavy on Superman and Batman.
The video closes with a title card telling viewers to find the titles on WarnerBros.com and Paramount.com.
Thirty titles are listed, and four of them are Superman and Batman movies: Superman, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Batman.
No other franchise gets that many slots.
The rest of the card runs from Casablanca, The Godfather, and Titanic to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Matrix, Top Gun: Maverick, House of the Dragon, and The Sopranos. Dune: Part Three, which opens December 18, is on there too.
A Week Of Executive Changes
The name lands after a string of executive announcements for the combined company.
On September 30, Ellison named former Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz as Co-CEO of the merged company. Kreiz starts at Paramount on October 5 and will run day-to-day operations and the integration of the two businesses, while Ellison remains Chairman and CEO overseeing strategy, creative, and technology.
On the streaming side, Cindy Holland is out at Paramount, with HBO’s Casey Bloys expected to take over streaming for the combined company.
Per Puck’s Matthew Belloni, Warner Bros. film bosses Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy will not be joining the new company, with Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg set to oversee film at both studios.
At DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran have been invited to stay on, “at least initially.”
The merger is expected to close next week. Both studios keep their names. The company above them is Skydance.
