Ellison and his team must braid together two huge film studios (housing nine film labels), four streaming services, three TV production studios, three animation units and more than 50 television networks, including two prominent news organizations. That could be a daunting task, particularly based on how previous Hollywood mergers have fared.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, the real work begins,\u201d David G. Fubini, a Harvard Business School senior lecturer, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Anxieties were evident Tuesday \u2014 the day the deal closed \u2014 when Ellison held a town hall meeting at Warner Bros., which drew nearly 500 employees.<\/p>\n
During the session, CNN\u2019s Anderson Cooper quizzed his new bosses, including about anticipated layoffs and news independence. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you stand with CNN and our effort to completely restore access to covering President Trump?\u201d Cooper asked, referring to CNN\u2019s legal fight alongside MS Now and Politico to reverse the president\u2019s ban on the three organizations.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d Ellison replied.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791553457_679_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper, pictured here in 2021, quizzed his bosses at a Burbank town hall. <\/p>\n
(Evan Agostini \/ Invision \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Hours later, Ellison parried with reporters in Paramount\u2019s darkened Stage 3, recently revamped with laser projection capabilities to simulate fantastical and far-flung settings for TV shows, such as the streets of New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a turbulent process, and, at times, a really ugly process, to actually get this deal over the finish line,\u201d Ellison acknowledged to reporters. \u201cWhat I want to be able to do now is turn the page, and actually make sure that we are in the business of rebuilding trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
To do that, Ellison intends to make more movies and TV shows than rivals. He wants to ensure the Warner Bros. and Paramount studios, which will be kept separate for now, remain talent-friendly destinations.<\/p>\n
Ellison has taken an opposing view from his predecessors who confronted crumbling industry economics by cutting expenditures to boost their corporate bottom lines.<\/p>\n
The 43-year-old executive, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, proudly views his family as \u201cowner-operators,\u201d unshackled by quarterly earnings expectations or the need to dole out dividends to keep investors happy. The Ellison family controls the company\u2019s voting stock, allowing David Ellison to take a long-term view as he charts Skydance\u2019s course. <\/p>\n
The goal is to \u201cwin in storytelling,\u201d Skydance said in an investor presentation. It intends to build the media industry\u2019s most \u201ctechnologically capable\u201d firm, which uses artificial intelligence to speed work flows. Skydance plans to spend at least $30 billion a year on film, television and video game content. <\/p>\n
![\"Skydance's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791553457_398_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Skydance co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, Sarah Ellison, CEO David Ellison and investor Gerry Cardinale of RedBird Capital Partners on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. <\/p>\n
(Yuki Iwamura \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
The realities of Ellison\u2019s big swing will soon sink in as he and his team turn their focus to integrating the myriad operations and about 55,000 employees. <\/p>\n
In some ways, Ellison is behind the curve. <\/p>\n
Most major mergers are consummated after executives have dedicated months to quietly drafting detailed operational plans and organizational hierarchies. Ellison, in contrast, has spent the last nine months in a pitched battle for Warner Bros. \u2014 ultimately vanquishing Netflix, hundreds of vocal merger opponents, and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and his coalition of 11 other state attorneys general who filed an antitrust lawsuit in July in an attempt to derail the deal. <\/p>\n
Ellison and Bonta resolved their legal fight Sept. 21. A week later, a federal judge cleared the way for the merger to close. <\/p>\n
The lawsuit settlement with Bonta requires that the combined company produce at least 30 movies a year for five years. It also must maintain the studio facilities in Los Angeles, making \u201creasonable efforts to operate the lots in a manner consistent with past practices,\u201d according to the agreement. <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791553458_963_.jpeg\")
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Skydance has committed to maintaining operations on the Warner Bros. lot, pictured here, and at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. <\/p>\n
(Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Ynon Kreiz, former chief executive of Mattel toys in El Segundo, has been tasked with leading the integration. The 61-year-old executive joined Ellison at Skydance as his co-CEO earlier this week. Day One of the combined company marked Kreiz\u2019s second day on the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a whole new management team that will be expected to immediately lead this massive integration,\u201d Fubini, a former partner at consulting firm McKinsey, said. \u201cThe clouds have cleared, and they are at the base camp of Mt. Everest facing this enormous undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a report this week, TD Cowen Global Research maintained its \u201chold\u201d rating on the newly constituted Skydance, expressing some doubts about Ellison and his team\u2019s ability to \u201cavoid integration and execution problems that have bedeviled other major media mergers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollywood has had a history of failed mergers, including Discovery\u2019s 2022 takeover of WarnerMedia from AT&T, which led to years of cost cuts that ultimately seeded the ground for Ellison\u2019s takeover. AT&T\u2019s purchase of the same assets in 2018 also quickly unraveled, some 20 years after the epic failure of AOL Time Warner. <\/p>\n
Ellison now must grapple with the hefty acquisition costs for Warner Bros., which climbed as the deal was delayed. The company emerged from the transaction with $86.8 billion in total debt; with most of that going toward buying out Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s stockholders at $31.17 a share. <\/p>\n
The debt burden also includes more than $18 billion in obligations leftover from past mergers. Skydance has nearly $7 billion in cash on hand.<\/p>\n
![\"Oracle's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791553458_87_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Oracle\u2019s Larry Ellison and executive producer David Ellison arrive at the L.A. premiere of \u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d at the Dolby Theatre in 2013. <\/p>\n
(Eric Charbonneau \/ Getty Images for the Hollywood Reporter)<\/p>\n
The Ellison family brought in foreign investors, including royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi as passive owners, to contribute equity to the deal. Gerald Cardinale\u2019s RedBird Capital Partners, a longtime Skydance stakeholder, added $4 billion, bringing its total investment in Skydance deals to $6 billion.<\/p>\n
The deal\u2019s financial terms pose deep challenges, analysts said. Fitch Ratings this week downgraded Skydance credit, citing \u201cmaterially higher leverage after the acquisition and significant execution and integration risks,\u201d according to its report. <\/p>\n
\u201cInterest rate increases made financing this transaction far more expensive than anyone anticipated,\u201d said Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School. \u201cThose lenders are going to start expecting their interest payments \u2014 Skydance executives won\u2019t have the luxury of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company could struggle, Talley said, to \u201cgenerate the cash flow needed to easily service that debt unless they can significantly cut costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skydance has promised investors that it will make $6 billion in cost cuts over three years. It anticipates $2 billion in reductions within a year, with the bulk of the rest occurring in the second year of the merger. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are going to be firing a lot of people,\u201d TD Cowen Global Research media analyst Doug Creutz said.<\/p>\n
During the press briefing, Kreiz sought to downplay the expected workforce toll, saying Skydance would achieve savings by combining technologies that support streaming services and marketing expenditures. It plans to save costs on real estate by locating employees at Skydance-owned properties in Santa Monica, Hollywood and Burbank.<\/p>\n
HBO could move from Ivy Station in Culver City, its home for the last five years<\/a>, to one of the studio lots.<\/p>\n Ellison and Kreiz said they would jointly manage the new colossus.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere David will focus on creative, technology, long-term strategy, including especially as it relates to the creative part of the business, I will focus more on the operations and the day-to-day management of the business,\u201d Kreiz said.<\/p>\n Kreiz was named to Skydance\u2018s expanded board this week along with Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of the Emerson Collective; and Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision.<\/p>\n The new leaders expressed confidence they could expand and integrate their two major streaming services to drive growth. HBO Max and Paramount+ combined will reach more than 200 million subscribers. <\/p>\n The plan, they said, is to combine the two streamers within a couple of years, but the company may offer subscribers a bundle with the two offerings sooner. <\/p>\n Skydance, according to sources, also expects to bolster its free, ad-supported service Pluto TV, which offers more than 200 channels. The service hasn\u2019t had much corporate attention in recent years amid the cuts and deal-making.<\/p>\n The executives have not disclosed which teams would soon be affected or how they will structure overlapping business units. <\/p>\n For example, the company\u2019s three TV studios each have their own leader: Channing Dungey runs the largest, Warner Bros. Television<\/a>; David Stapf has long managed CBS Studios; and Skydance executive Matt Thunell <\/a>has been president of Paramount Television Studios since last year.<\/p>\n Integrating CNN and CBS<\/p>\n Anxiety over whether CNN and CBS News would be mashed together was quelled, at least for now. <\/p>\n Skydance announced that it was retaining CNN Worldwide Chairman Mark Thompson as head of the larger news organization. CNN journalists had worried that CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss, who has presided over a year of turmoil at the network, would be put in charge of both. <\/p>\n Any news consolidation could take years, in part, because CBS News is largely unionized while CNN is a non-union shop.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to spend the next several months basically getting under the hood,\u201d Ellison said.<\/p>\n CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss, pictured here in 2023 in Los Angeles, has had a turbulent tenure at CBS. <\/p>\n (Francine Orr \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Another challenge will be stabilizing the Warner Bros. film unit, which has had a rough year at the box office. This month, the top two Warner Bros. film executives, Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy, exited abruptly, clearing the way for longtime Ellison lieutenants Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein to oversee both film studios. The co-heads of DC Comics, James Gunn and Peter Safran, segued to the new Skydance.<\/p>\n Skydance also will have to deal with the NFL, which could demand substantially higher fees for CBS to keep its Sunday games.<\/p>\n The current contract allows the league to reopen negotiations because of the ownership change. Skydance is hoping it can wait three years until the contracts of other broadcasters also are up for discussion. <\/p>\n Skydance will be a major player in sports. Last year, Paramount agreed to spend $7.7 billion for UFC fights. The combined company also has rights to professional golf, including the Masters tournament; National Hockey League; Major League Baseball and NCAA basketball, including March Madness, as well as European rights to televise the Olympics. <\/p>\n \u201cUntil you actually get inside the company, there are things you won\u2019t know,\u201d Creutz said. \u201cBut they are going to have to come up with answers pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech scion David Ellison spent three years doggedly pursuing his dream: acquiring Paramount, then Warner Bros. Discovery. Ellison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15394,1259,288938,73299,14185,108770,42,2085,59058,43,4523,4527,3878,40,38,41,39,9483,2709,1661,288937],"class_list":["post-641249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cnn","tag-company","tag-cost-cut","tag-david-ellison","tag-deal","tag-ellison","tag-headlines","tag-hollywood","tag-merger","tag-news","tag-paramount","tag-skydance","tag-team","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-warner-bros-discovery","tag-week","tag-year","tag-ynon-kreiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Bari](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791553459_628_.jpeg\")
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