Hollywood Merger

Paramount Skydance has closed its takeover of Warner Bros Discovery after months of wrangling. BBC News puts it at $110 billion. NPR and IndieWire put the figure at $111 billion.

Skydance Corporation is the new name for the combined company. HBO, CBS, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Comedy Central, DC Studios and Food Network now sit inside it, BBC News reported. Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings and Mission: Impossible all answer to one owner.

David Ellison, Skydance's chairman and chief executive, called the deal's completion "historic," BBC News reported. Ynon Kreiz, Mattel's outgoing chief executive, steps in as co-chief executive and takes charge of day-to-day operations. Ellison will focus on strategy and technology instead.

Getting here took a fight. A long one. Lawyers in roughly a dozen US states, led by California, sued to block the merger, arguing it would raise prices and hurt theaters and audiences, BBC News reported. The states settled last month.

Hard numbers anchor the consent decree. Paramount must release at least 30 films a year for two years, then 32 a year through 2031, The Verge and IndieWire reported. A fifth of those films need budgets of $50 million or more. Paramount must also spend $300 million more on US production than it did in 2025, keep Pluto TV running free, and leave its Los Angeles and Burbank lots unsold for five years. Fall short on the film quota, and Paramount has to sell Miramax and pay $30 million for every release it misses, IndieWire reported.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta drew a contrast with Disney's 2018 takeover of Fox, calling this settlement "the opposite" since Fox's output fell afterward, The Verge reported. The deal, he said, was "not a vote of support for this merger" but a move to protect competition and workers. Ellison thanked Bonta and California Governor Gavin Newsom for "engaging in good faith." The Writers Guild of America folded its own antitrust suit against Paramount into the same settlement.

Paramount also agreed to stand up a five-member news editorial independence board for CBS and CNN, BBC News and The Verge reported. Concerns followed Skydance's earlier takeover of Paramount in 2025, BBC News reported. Ellison, who hosted a dinner for President Trump this year, said editorial independence will hold. Mark Thompson stays on as CNN's chairman and editor-in-chief. Bari Weiss remains CBS News editor-in-chief. Casey Bloys, formerly of HBO, takes over as co-chair and chief content officer for streaming, BBC News reported.

Nearly 70 jurisdictions signed off on the deal, unanimously, Paramount said, according to The Verge. Netflix had agreed to buy part of Warner Bros Discovery before Paramount Skydance won the bidding, BBC News reported.

"Not a vote of support for this merger," Bonta said.