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Warner Bros has a record 30 nominations at this weekend’s Oscars, mostly for Sinners and One Battle After Another, while Paramount has zero.
So what? By next year’s ceremony, Hollywood will be remade and these numbers could be very different. David Ellison, owner of Paramount Skydance, is trying to steer his $111bn bid for Warner Bros through regulators. If he succeeds, the deal will
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cement him as Donald Trump’s favourite movie mogul;
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reduce the number of major studios in Hollywood from five to four; and
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likely lead to fewer movies and turn Tinseltown into an even more closed shop.
My precious. David Ellison’s production company Skydance bought Paramount in August. The following month he held a board meeting to discuss the acquisition of Warner Bros. His unsolicited offer for the entertainment giant created a bidding war that saw him sue Warner Bros and raise his bid until Netflix folded.
It’s who you know. Trump publicly backed Ellison and threatened regulatory issues for a Netflix deal if a high-profile Democrat wasn’t removed from its board.
Follow the money. In dropping its bid, Netflix called Warner Bros a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price. For Paramount, it appears to be the other way around. Warner Bros, by some metrics, leaves Paramount in the dust.
However, many suspect the deal is poorly judged on the part of Paramount because of the financial picture at Warner Bros. The company has undergone seven sales, mergers and structural separations in the past 60 years. It had $29bn of net debt at the end of 2025.
One more thing. Paramount is itself $14bn in debt. This was downgraded to junk status after it won its bidding war last month. New debt and refinancing would put Para-Bros $79bn in the red.
That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It’s unclear whether David Ellison, an actor turned media proprietor, will be up for the task.
Amen. Gerry Cardinale, the founder of RedBird Capital, which is backing the Ellison bid, recently remarked: “I’ve always said, particularly in these content businesses, you’re only as good as the people you put around you.”
Oh wait. Ellison’s history of controversial hires includes John Lasseter, formerly of Pixar, Jeff Shell, formerly of NBCUniversal, and the filmmaker Max Landis. All three have faced allegations of sexual misconduct. All three deny any wrongdoing.
Let’s talk about movies. Recent Warner Bros releases include Barbie, Elvis, F1 The Movie, Mickey 17, Tenet, Air, Challengers and Wuthering Heights.
Not another sequel. Ellison is expected to put more focus on franchises and blockbusters in the vein of Top Gun: Maverick. He was a producer of the 2022 film, which grossed more than $1.5bn at the box office. Even if he gets behind similar hits, one concern is that the merged companies will be less than the sum of their parts and produce fewer movies as a result.
America’s playground. A few months ago, Paramount said the deal for Warner Bros would include $24bn in equity from three sovereign wealth funds: the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding.
The long and short. Paramount hasn’t confirmed whether the three Gulf states are involved in the latest offer, but, if so, it would mark their biggest move into Hollywood to date.
Worth noting. The US, EU and the UK all have rules over foreign investment in media companies. The Para-Bros deal would also include CNN.
Of all the studios in all the towns. Ellison will hope that this, and other regulatory snafus, don’t block the deal. Ellison’s father, Larry, is already a majority shareholder in American TikTok. Adding Warner Bros to the stable would make the Ellison family one of the most powerful movie and content-making forces in the US, despite their limited experience.
What’s more… The real winner may end up being Netflix, which avoided a huge debt burden, took on a role as the lesser of two evils, and received a $2.8bn termination fee for its time.
Photograph by TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo
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