UPDATE 3: The slide continues, with Supergirl now at the bottom of Nielsen’s streaming chart.
UPDATE 2: Insiders agree on the blame, “the massive bomb was under James Gunn,” and say De Luca and Abdy are staying.
UPDATE: The first Nielsen streaming numbers side with the staffers, as Supergirl debuted behind The Flash and Blue Beetle on HBO Max.
The day after Paramount settled with California, our insiders described the mood inside Warner Bros. with one word: “panic.”
They said many at WBD are “looking for an exit,” that cuts are coming “either RIF or ‘contract expired,'” RIF meaning layoffs, and that “these mergers always cut 1000s of jobs.”
A day later, Deadline went inside the Burbank lot and heard the same.
“It feels like a scramble,” one source told the outlet, and the infighting includes who to blame for James Gunn’s Supergirl.
A Zoom Call With 500 Staffers
Per Deadline, a Wednesday Zoom call with 500 senior Warner Bros. staffers went over Monday’s settlement and what comes next.
The call was led by WBD Studios COO Simon Robinson, who is running the merger integration, along with the legal, comms, and HR chiefs.
The four conceded they don’t have much visibility into Paramount’s plans.
The deal is expected to close in about 10 days, in line with the two-week timeframe David Ellison gave Monday.
The new company’s name and leadership structure will likely be announced before the close.
HR boss Amy Girdwood told leaders to take a moment to reflect on the great work of their tenures.
David Zaslav wasn’t on the call. He’s likely to walk away with more than $600 million from the sale.
Cuts, Exits, And The Kumbaya Phase
Paramount has said the merger means $6 billion in savings, and that it doesn’t have to mean job cuts.
Staffers aren’t buying it. “We’ve been here before. We know what it looks like,” one said.
Our insiders said the same thing: expect a stretch of “kumbaya” at ParaBros “before the ax falls.”
Per Deadline, contract renewals are paused, severances are capped, and more departures are expected right after the close, when execs can finally cash out their stock.
Some are already gone. Comms exec Katie Martin Kelley left for Netflix, an exit our insiders tied to the Supergirl fallout and said was no surprise.
HBO Max marketing exec Pia Barlow went to Amazon MGM, a move WBD is suing over as poaching.
A former Turner publicist told Deadline that since Zaslav took control of Warner Bros., “there’s just been thousands of jobs lost.”
And then the big one: “People are very concerned about the survival of the Warner Bros brand,” a source said.
Fingers Point At Supergirl
Deadline also reports infighting between departments over this year’s box office, where no Warner Bros. movie has cleared $100 million domestic.
The studio’s biggest of the year stateside is Wuthering Heights at $84 million.
The sharpest anger lands on James Gunn’s Supergirl.
Per the outlet, the home entertainment and data analytics teams weren’t happy about the movie tanking, and key staffers believe DC Studios “chose the wrong comic book character to adapt.”
Supergirl cost $186 million net to make. It grossed $126.3 million worldwide.
That lines up with our reporting on the bomb.
Our insiders have said Paramount is well aware of the DCU backlash, and that his contract expires in 2027.
Deadline’s sources are wondering if the Warner Bros. brand survives the merger.
Our insiders already put a date on how different things get: “Wild 6-12 months, ParaBros will look completely different by summer 2027.”
