\n\tSkydance paid about $8 billion in total for Paramount Global<\/a>. In 1994 \u2014 after a 10-month slog of outmaneuvering rival suitors that include Barry Diller, QVC, John Malone and then-powerful telco BellSouth \u2013 Sumner Redstone closed the deal for Paramount Pictures alone at $9.5 billion \u2013 that\u2019s $19.5 billion in today\u2019s dollars, adjusted for inflation.<\/p>\n \n\tA generation ago, Sumner Redstone was manifestly energized and emboldened by the obstacles that he overcame to secure his prize of owning one of Hollywood\u2019s foundational studios. For his daughter Shari Redstone, the handover to Skydance Media came with far less fanfare. And it came five years nearly to the day after Sumner Redstone\u2019s death at 97.<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tThe company that Skydance just bought is endowed with sui generis assets \u2013 most notably, Paramount Pictures and CBS, brands that have been part of the nation\u2019s media fabric for more than a century. They are irreplicable. But the company that ended its run as Paramount Global has been hobbled the macroeconomic changes that have rocked all of media and entertainment. None have been more disrupted than the legacy studios that defined Hollywood\u2019s first century. And none more so, for so many reasons, than Paramount Global.<\/p>\n \n\tThe timing of the sale brings a bookend to the decade that Shari Redstone spent cleaning up the very big mess made by her father in his waning years at the helm of his Viacom empire. Sumner Redstone, who started out with a chain movie theaters in New England, acquired CBS in 2000 and put it under the Viacom umbrella. Six years after that, Sumner changed his mind and decided Viacom and CBS should operate separately, albeit both under his firm control.<\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tSumner Redstone\u2019s journey to buy Paramount Pictures was just starting when he struck the deal in September 1993. The pricetag would climb by more than $1 billion after the bidding wars were done.<\/p>\n \n\tShari Redstone came back into the picture in a big way in the fall of 2015 when her 90-something father went into physical decline at Beverly Park compound. By many accounts \u2014 including the excellent reportage in the 2023 book \u201cUnscripted\u201d by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams \u2014 Shari stepped into a storyline worthy of \u201cDallas\u201d or \u201cDynasty.\u201d Scheming girlfriends, questionable business partners, a fleet of lawyers and consultants gorging themselves on fees and a whole lot of other jockeying around Sumner Redstone\u2019s fortune and his business empire. With all of this internal drama, it was no wonder at all that Paramount began to suffer from neglect and a lack of vision. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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