The soon to be merged Paramount Warner Bros Motion Picture unit under the freshly labeled Skydance is bound to be run by current Paramount Motion Picture co-chairs, Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, multiple sources say.
This comes after a sleepless night for Warner Bros’ Motion Picture Chairs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, who we hear, first learned that they weren’t making the jump to the new company from reports last night. It’s our understanding that Paramount co-CEO David Ellison never made a phone call to them about their future. The news comes at a stinging time as Warner Bros’ faces an epic flop in the $125M-$160M+ priced Tom Cruise starring, Alejandro Iñárritu social satire, Digger, which is poised to open to around $30M WW or less this weekend.
De Luca and Abdy have been at Warner Bros since June 2022, when they jumped over from MGM following Amazon’s acquisition of that storied studio. The duo recently re-upped their contracts under WBD CEO David Zaslav through 2030. Key to their future at the new Paramount Warner Bros is whether or not Ellison continued to honor their current terms, which would have Warner Bros marketing and distribution departments report into them. From the sounds of it, those were tough terms for the numbers-crunching Ellison to honor. He’s a loyalist to his 16-year production colleague Goldberg, and longtime amigo Greenstein who have been steering the motion picture unit into financially reasonable shape following the old Paramount.
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Paramount will inherit a combined slate around 71 dated features through 2028, 56% of that generated by De Luca and Abdy’s Warner Bros. There’s still more to be dated by both studios in 2028. Paramount will also gain a film library that includes the $4.37 billion global grossing 2025 slate that De Luca and Abdy built as well as Oscar winners One Battle After Another, Sinners (until the rights of that film revert to its director Ryan Coogler) and Weapons.
There appears to be some talks as to exactly what De Luca and Abdy’s role will be in the new entity, however, the duo weren’t contracted to report into other motion picture chairs, rather the CEO. Reporting into Greenstein and Goldberg doesn’t sound like a likely scenario for the duo per sources. De Luca and Abdy could be offered a producing contract in the new Skydance.
The executive chart for the new Paramount Warner Bros is expected to be announced in a matter of days. Ellison brought in former Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz as co-CEO. “Ellison will focus on the company’s long-term strategy, creative vision and direction, including its talent relationships, strategic partnerships, technology and capital allocation,” Paramount said. “Kreiz will focus on the company’s day-to-day management and integration of the combined businesses.”
There was an optimistic buzz on Thursday that De Luca and Abdy would also have gate rights on the Melrose lot, and potentially report into Kreiz, but that’s not the likely scenario.
Additionally in the new Paramount Warner Bros, Casey Bloys was tapped as streaming head of the combined Paramount-WBD with Paramount’s current Chair of Direct-to-Consumer, Cindy Holland departing. Mark Thompson was told he’d stay on to oversee CNN going forward.
While De Luca and Abdy had a great run at the box office last year, this year has been littered with myriad misfires including The Bride, Supergirl with no movie earning more than $100M stateside. However, Paramount, too, hasn’t had a great box office year, though they have two $100M+ domestic titles in Scream 7 and Miramax’s Scary Movie. Under De Luca and Abdy, Warner Bros talliedtallied 30 noms earlier this year, which tied the studio’s record from 2005. Warners took home 11 of those Oscars (six including Best Picture for One Battle After Another, four for Sinners, and supporting actress Amy Madigan’s win for Weapons).
De Luca and Abdy presided over MGM starting in January 2020 until April 2022. There they built a slate which assisted in fueling the studio’s sale to Amazon for $8.45 billion for the 4,000 title library. During their run there, theatrical releases included No Time to Die, House of Gucci, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, not to mention they teed up Creed III, which became the highest grossing in that franchise and the second highest grossing in the Rocky franchise.
Paramount could not be reached for comment.
