Ellison

Paramount, backed by billionaire Larry Ellison and his family, has officially opened the bidding for rival Warner Bros. Discovery — a potential massive merger that would dramatically change Hollywood.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s board rejected Paramount’s initial bid of about $20 a share, but talks are continuing, according to two people close to the companies who were not authorized to speak publicly.

One of the knowledgeable sources said Paramount was preparing a second bid.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns HBO, CNN, TBS, Food Network, HGTV and the prolific Warner Bros. movie and television studio in Burbank.

Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, is committed to helping his 42-year-old son, David, pull off the industry-reshaping acquisition and has agreed to help finance the bid, two people close to the situation said.

The younger Ellison, who entered the movie business 15 years ago by launching his Skydance Media production company, was catapulted into the major leagues this summer with the Ellison family’s purchase of Paramount’s controlling stake.

Since then, David Ellison and his team have made bold moves to help Paramount shake more than a decade of doldrums. Buying Warner Bros. Discovery would be their most audacious move yet. The merger would lead to the elimination of one of the original Hollywood film studios, and could see the consolidation of CNN with Paramount-owned CBS News.

Representatives for Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.

CNBC reported Friday that two companies have been in discussions for weeks following last month’s news that Paramount was planning a bid. Bloomberg reported Saturday that Warner Bros. Discovery had rejected Paramount’s bid of about $20 a share.

Industry veterans were stunned by the speed of Paramount’s play for Warner Bros. Discovery, noting that top executives had begun working on the bid even as they were putting finishing touches on the Paramount takeover.

One of Paramount’s top executives is a former Goldman Sachs banker, Andy Gordon, who was a ranking member of RedBird Capital Partners, the private equity firm that has teamed up with the Ellisons and has a significant stake in Paramount.

Paramount’s interest prompted stocks of both companies to soar, driving up the market value for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount’s offer of $20 a share for Warner Bros. Discovery was less than what some analysts and sources believe the company’s parts are worth, leading the Warner Bros. Discovery board to rebuff the offer, sources said.

But many believe that Paramount needs more content to better compete in a landscape that’s dominated by tech giants such as Netflix and Amazon.

Paramount has reason to move quickly.

Warner Bros. Discovery had previously announced that it was planning to divide its assets into two companies by next April. One company, Warner Bros., would be made up of HBO, the HBO Max streaming service and the Burbank-based movie and television studios. Current Chief Executive David Zaslav would run that enterprise.

The other arm would be called Discovery Global and consist of the linear cable television channels, which have seen their fortunes fall with consumers’ shift to streaming.

The Paramount bid was seen as an attempt to slip in under the wire because other large companies, including Amazon, Apple and Netflix, may have been interested in buying the studios, streaming service and leafy studio lot in Burbank.

However, Netflix’s co-chief executive Greg Peters appeared to downplay Netflix’s interest during an appearance last week at the Bloomberg Screentime media conference. “We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers,” Peters said.

Some analysts believe Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery could ultimately prevail because Zaslav and his team have made huge cuts during the past three years to get the various businesses profitable after buying the company from AT&T, which left the company burdened with a heavy debt load. The company has paid down billions of dollars of debt, but still carries nearly $35 billion of debt on its books.

Others point to Warner Bros.’ recent successes at the box office as evidence that Paramount is offering too little.

Despite the tumult at the corporate level, Warner Bros.’ film studio has had a successful year. Its fortunes turned around in April with the release of “A Minecraft Movie,” which grossed nearly $958 million worldwide, followed by a string of hits including Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” James Gunn’s “Superman” and horror flick “Weapons.”

Meanwhile, Paramount has been on a buying spree.

Just in the last two months, Paramount made a $7.7 billion deal for UFC media rights and closed two deals that will pay the creators of “South Park” more than $1.25 billion over five years to secure streaming rights to the popular cartoon.

Last week at Bloomberg’s Screentime media conference, Ellison declined to comment on Paramount’s pursuit of Warner Bros. or even whether his company had already made a bid. But he did touch briefly on consolidation in Hollywood, saying, “Ironically, it was David Zaslav last year who said that consolidation in the media business is important.”

“There are a lot of options out there,” he added, but declined to elaborate.

After news of Paramount’s interest surfaced, Warner Bros. Discovery‘s stock jumped more than 30%. It climbed as much as $20 a share, but closed Friday at $17.10, down 3.2%.

Paramount also has seen its stock surge by about 12%. Shares finished Friday at $17, down 5.4%

Warner Bros. Discovery is now valued at $42 billion. Paramount is considerably smaller, worth about $18.5 billion.

Billionaire Larry Ellison ponied up the money for his family to acquire the controlling stake in Paramount two months ago, and the tech titan would need to write another huge check should Paramount buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

So, in Hollywood circles, the question has been: How involved is the elder Ellison in Paramount’s strategy and operations?

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison said he speaks with his father every day, but he drew an important distinction:

“Look, I run the company day to day. Make no mistake about that,” David Ellison said Thursday at Bloomberg’s Screentime media conference in Hollywood, adding that his father had been a “phenomenal” mentor and “we couldn’t have a better relationship.”

“He is the largest shareholder in the business,” Ellison said. “What’s important for everybody to know is the way he approaches this is: How do we maximize value for our shareholders? … I think he’s best in the world for doing that.”

Since the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners acquired Paramount in August, its stock is up more than 50%. Much of the run-up came last month after news leaked that Paramount was interested in acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, TBS, Food Network and one of Hollywood’s most prolific film and television studios.

Ellison refused to comment on Paramount’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery or whether his team had already made a bid.

But he did shed light on the business strategy behind any pursuit, while trying to tamp down fears that another big merger would result in more cost-cutting, more job losses and a reduction in content spending.

“The way we approach everything is, first and foremost: What’s good for the talent community, what’s good for our shareholders and value creation, and what’s good for basically storytelling at large?” Ellison said. “We’re looking at actually producing more movies [and] more television series … because you need that content.”

Paramount staffers are bracing for a massive workforce reduction next month, part of the company’s goal of finding more than $2 billion in spending cuts.

But, since the takeover, Paramount’s Ellison has made a priority of beefing up relationships with talent through a series of big bets, including agreeing to pay $7.7 billion for media rights to UFC’s mixed martial arts events in the U.S. in a seven-year deal with TKO Group Holdings.

The company also invested in the construction of a Texas-based production hub for prolific “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan and agreed to pay $1.5 billion over five years for streaming rights for “South Park,” the Comedy Central cartoon. And Paramount lured Matt and Ross Duffer, who created “Stranger Things,” away from Netflix with an exclusive four-year television, streaming and film deal.

Earlier this week, Paramount spent $150 million to acquire Bari Weiss’ the Free Press news site, while also naming Weiss editor in chief of CBS News.

Warner Bros. Discovery, led by Chief Executive David Zaslav, also has declined to discuss Paramount’s interest, although people close to the company have suggested Zaslav would like to see bidding war.

No other studios have publicly expressed interest and, on Wednesday, Netflix Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters downplayed such speculation.

“We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers,” Peters said during a separate appearance at the Screentime conference, adding the track record for big mergers was not great.

But Wall Street widely expects more consolidation among entertainment firms.

“Ironically, it was David Zaslav last year who said that consolidation in the media business is important,” Ellison said, adding “there are a lot of options out there.” But he declined to elaborate.

Analysts have speculated that, beyond Paramount, few other media companies have financial firepower to pull off a bid. And Paramount has an “in” that several other media companies, including Brian Roberts’ Comcast, lack: a good relationship with President Trump and his administration.

Trump has called Larry Ellison a good friend. After David Ellison spoke with Trump at a June UFC fight, the previous managers of Paramount got traction in their efforts to settle Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with Kamala Harris. Paramount paid $16 million in July to settle the suit and weeks later the Federal Communications Commission approved the Ellison takeover of Paramount.

“We have a good relationship with the administration,” David Ellison said.

About 200 people gathered on Paramount’s Melrose Avenue lot for a screening of “Red Alert,” a four-part scripted drama portraying the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel from the perspective of six victims.

The host of the Sept. 30 event was Paramount Chairman and Chief Executive David Ellison, who shared how he had chatted with Academy Award-nominated producer Lawrence Bender a few weeks earlier at a memorial service for legendary Hollywood power broker Skip Brittenham. That’s where Ellison learned that Bender’s Israeli-backed series, “Red Alert,” needed a home in the U.S.

Ellison quickly volunteered. “It was a fast ‘yes,’ ” he told the group.

On Tuesday, “Red Alert” debuted on the company’s streaming service, Paramount+, marking the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The initial Hamas assault left about 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 250 kidnapped.

The high-profile project comes two months after Ellison assumed control of Paramount in an $8-billion buyout by his family, led by billionaire and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners.

Since the deal closed Aug. 7, David Ellison has moved to position the company slightly right of the political center, while also taking on polarizing issues. The scion has been unafraid to challenge those in Hollywood who’ve called for a boycott of Israel.

More than two years after the Oct. 7 attack, a deep divide remains in Hollywood over the subsequent Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, Paramount condemned an open letter in support of Palestinians, which has gained steam in Hollywood. More than 5,000 people have signed the Film Workers for Palestine letter, including such prominent filmmakers as Adam McKay, Ava DuVernay, Alex Gibney and Hannah Einbinder.

The effort called for a boycott of Israeli film festivals, institutions and projects to help spur an end to the war in Gaza. The campaign was designed in the vein of South African boycotts decades ago, which proved to be instrumental in ending apartheid, that country’s racial segregation.

No other major studio followed Paramount.

In its Sept. 12 statement, Paramount said it disagreed with the Film Workers call to avoid film screenings or to work with Israeli film institutions.

“At Paramount, we believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” the company said. “Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”

The Film Workers group accused Paramount of misrepresenting the intent of its pledge, saying it did not target individual filmmakers.

But critics counter that filmmakers who engage with Israeli cultural institutions would likely fall under the ban.

More than 1,200 industry players including actors Mayim Bialik and Liev Schreiber and Paramount board member Sherry Lansing signed an opposing open letter released by the nonprofit organization Creative Community For Peace that accuses the Film Workers for Palestine of advocating “arbitrary censorship and the erasure of art.”

The Palestinian supporters dismissed the characterization. “The Film Workers Pledge to End Complicity is an explicitly anti-racist and non-violent campaign that is grounded in international law and the moral clarity of a global majority opposed to genocide,” the group said in a statement this week. “It is the first major refusal of the international film industry at large that targets complicit Israeli film institutions and companies.”

“Red Alert” was co-produced by a prominent Israeli production company, Keshet Media Group, and received funding from the Jewish National Fund-USA and the Israel Entertainment Fund. The series premiered last weekend on Israel’s popular television channel Keshet 12. Keshet produced the Hebrew-language series “Prisoners of War” that Showtime later adapted into the award-winning American drama “Homeland.”

During the late September screening at Paramount, Ellison spoke of the need for such projects as “Red Alert” to remember the atrocities as well as stories of survival and heroism.

“We at Paramount, we are here to tell stories that last forever,” Ellison said. “We are not here to debate politics or platforms or to argue about east or west. And ‘Red Alert’ is the very embodiment of that mission, and I couldn’t be prouder to support this series.”

Critics note that Ellison’s father, Larry, the co-founder of Oracle, is a prominent supporter of Israel, contributing millions to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

Others in Hollywood have found fault with Israel’s government and its conduct in the Gaza war, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants.

The United Nations, rights groups, experts and many Western governments accuse Israel of committing genocide. Israel denies the charge.

During a May 2024 Simon Wiesenthal Center gala in his honor, WME Group Executive Chairman Ari Emanuel sharply denounced Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for his ouster. Emanuel’s remarks were met with cheers and jeers and some attendees walked out.

In his Oscar acceptance speech last year, Jonathan Glazer, director of the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” asked “Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist?”

Weeks later, Steven Spielberg called out the rise of antisemitism as well as the ongoing war.

“We can rage against the heinous acts committed by the terrorists of October 7th and also decry the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza,” Spielberg said during an event celebrating the anniversary of the USC Shoah Foundation.

Paramount’s opposition to the Film Workers’ pledge and other recent moves, including buying the Free Press news site for $150 million and installing its founder, journalist Bari Weiss, as the editor in chief at CBS News, has rattled a small group of Paramount employees.

David Ellison recruited Weiss, who has been public about her support for Israel, for the prominent role.

The division was roiled by Paramount’s efforts to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview a year ago with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount this summer agreed to pay $16 million to end Trump’s suit, which 1st Amendment experts viewed as a spurious shakedown.

Weeks later, Trump appointees on the Federal Communications Commission approved the Ellison family’s takeover of Paramount.

The employee group, which calls itself Paramount Employees of Conscience, said they have sent two letters to Paramount leaders in the last month to voice their concerns but have not received a reply. In a statement, the group noted that while Paramount+ was distributing “Red Alert,” the company had not offered “equivalent programming about Palestinian experiences of the genocide in Gaza.”

“How can a company with this supposed creative mission actively ignore, suppress, and silence internal calls for years to champion stories that shed a light on the reality that marginalized and excluded communities, particularly Palestinians, face every day?” the group asked in a Sept. 17 letter addressed to Paramount’s leadership.

Paramount declined to comment.

The group includes about 30 employees, according to one member who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution.

Paramount employees separately are bracing for a steep round of layoffs, which is expected next month. Ellison’s firm Skydance Media and RedBird promised Wall Street that they would find more than $2 billion in cost cuts at Paramount.

“We know the Ellisons are formidable, powerful and have a lot of resources,” said the Paramount employee. “But we are here to interrupt a culture of silence…. Silence within the industry becomes complicity.”

Warner Bros. Discovery stock jumped more than 25% Thursday morning after a report that the Larry Ellison-backed Paramount was preparing a cash bid to buy the company that owns HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. studio.

The Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners acquired Paramount a month ago, and has signaled that it would take bold steps as it tries to rebuild Paramount to its former glory. David Ellison, Larry’s 42-year-old son, serves as chairman and chief executive of Paramount.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount’s bid would be for the entire company, including its movie studio, streaming assets and cable networks. Warner Bros. Discovery is in the process of spinning the cable channels into a separate company, a transaction that Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav said would be complete by next April.

Representatives of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.

Warner Bros. Discovery stock closed at $12.54 on Wednesday. It had soared to around $16 a share in Thursday mid-day trading.

Paramount Skydance shares also climbed 7% to around $16.30.

This is a developing story.

The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle, powered by multibillion-dollar orders, sent Oracle stock shooting up.

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison has wrested the title of the world’s richest person from longtime holder Elon Musk.

On Wednesday, as stock in Ellison’s software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading, Ellison’s net worth surpassed the Tesla CEO, according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. As of 3pm in New York (19:00 GMT), Oracle stock is up 34.4 percent for the day.

Ellison, 81, is now worth $393bn, according to Bloomberg. That is several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest person for four years running. Stock in one of Musk’s biggest holdings, Tesla, has been moving in the opposite direction of Oracle’s, dropping 14 percent so far this year as of Tuesday.

The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle, powered by multibillion-dollar orders from customers as the AI race heats up.

Ellison’s net worth is largely derived from his 41 percent stake in Oracle.

Another news organisation with a long history of tallying the world’s richest, Forbes, still has Musk at the top, at $439bn. Bloomberg put his net worth at $385bn. The difference is in how the two estimate the value of Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, among other private holdings.

It comes as Tesla shareholders have offered Musk a $1 trillion compensation package.

With Ellison’s surging fortune on Wednesday, he could fund the lifestyles of five million US families for a year, about the entire population of Florida, allowing them to all quit their jobs, assuming the US median household income.

In one of his first company-wide directives, Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison announced that employees must work in the office five days a week, beginning in January.

In a Thursday email, Ellison outlined the company’s phased-in approach for office attendance — including offering a severance package to Los Angeles- and New York-based vice presidents and lower-ranking employees if they wish to leave the company rather than return to the office.

The move sets the stage for what’s expected to be deep staff cuts later this year. Ellison and his RedBird Capital Partners investors have promised Wall Street more than $2 billion in cost savings as they take over the storied media company, install their own teams and integrate Skydance Media businesses, including video games and animation, into Paramount’s operations. Paramount previously cut several hundred jobs this summer.

Paramount representatives have declined to comment on the pending layoffs beyond saying they hope to achieve the cuts with one large round.

The Ellison family and RedBird finalized their $8-billion takeover of Paramount last month after months of turmoil as federal regulators chewed over the deal until Paramount agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over “60 Minutes” interview edits.

Since then, Ellison and his lieutenants have moved quickly to remake Paramount with big bets, including agreeing to pay $7.7 billion for media rights to UFC’s mixed martial arts events in the U.S. in a seven-year deal with TKO Group Holdings. The company also invested in the construction of a Texas-based production hub for prolific “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan. It agreed to pay $1.5 billion over five years for streaming rights for “South Park,” the Comedy Central cartoon.

On Thursday, Paramount said it had reached a three-year global film distribution deal with “Dune” studio Legendary, beginning with next year’s “Street Fighter.” Paramount will market and distribute Legendary films throughout the world, except in China, where Legendary East oversees releases.

Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal allows Warner Bros. to continue to distribute some films, including co-productions “Dune: Part Three” in 2026 and “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova” in 2027.

CBS News also is bracing for change. Paramount’s new chief is reportedly in negotiations with journalist Bari Weiss to buy her center-right news site, the Free Press, and join CBS News in an undisclosed role. A Paramount spokesperson on Thursday declined to comment on the talks.

Until now, Paramount staffers were expected to be in the office a couple days a week, but it was not consistently applied, according to people with knowledge of the matter but not authorized to comment.

Ellison is attempting to reset Paramount’s culture after years of under-investment, layoffs and management turmoil. In the email, he wrote the return-to-office directive was aimed at “building a stronger, more connected, and agile organization that can deliver on our goals and compete at the highest level.”

“We have a lot to accomplish and we’re moving fast,” Ellison said. “We need to all be rowing in the same direction. And especially when you’re dealing with a creative business like ours, that begins with being together in person.”

Media companies have had varying policies after the initial “work-from-home” policies imposed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly five and a half years ago. Sony Pictures Entertainment brought its employees back to the Culver City lot relatively quickly. Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger ordered a return to the office in January 2023, less than two months after he returned to lead the company.

“As I said during our town hall, some of the most formative moments of my life happened in rooms where I was a fly on the wall, listening and learning,” Ellison wrote in his email. “I’ve never seen that happen on Zoom. Being together in-person isn’t just about showing up — it’s about actively engaging with the business, supporting one another and the team’s efforts, and contributing to our shared momentum.”

Times Staff Writer Sam Masunaga contributed to this report.

Tech scion David Ellison and his leadership team at Paramount sent a message to Hollywood: A new era is underway.

Nearly a week after taking the keys to the battered media company, Ellison and his top executives met with reporters at the Paramount Pictures lot Wednesday to show that they mean business.

Ellison and his team will be based in Hollywood — not New York — and they plan to view the entertainment industry through a California lens by making big investments, leaning into technology and building on popular franchises, including “Top Gun,” “Star Trek” and “Yellowstone.”

Last week, Ellison’s Skydance Media and its backer RedBird Capital Partners closed their $8-billion takeover of the firm that includes CBS, Comedy Central, MTV Networks, Showtime and the Melrose Avenue movie studio.

“One of our biggest priorities is actually restoring Paramount as the No. 1 destination for the most talented artists and filmmakers in the world,” Ellison said. “Very simply, great filmmakers make great movies.”

Such a Paramount comeback would be long overdue.

The film studio has suffered from decades of under-investment, and was often bypassed by many of Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers. The studio plans to release eight films next year, but that’s too small an output to sustain a theatrical film business, Paramount executives said.

The plan is to nearly double the number of feature films to 15 and, and eventually, 20 movies a year.

Ellison, the 42-year-old chairman and chief executive, was eager to bury his days of being a political target, following the lengthy regulatory review of the deal and President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS for its edits of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris last fall. Paramount settled the lawsuit last month, agreeing to pay $16 million.

Days later, CBS notified Stephen Colbert that it was ending his late-night talk show in May — prompting howls among some fans and raising speculation the show was sacrificed to appease Trump. CBS has said the decision was “purely” based on economics; the show has been losing money.

Programming will be created with broad audiences in mind, Ellison and his lieutenants said. Ellison said his goal is to move the company away from political divisions in an effort to reach a wider audience.

“One of the things I think is important is I don’t want to politicize this company,” Ellison said. “We’re an entertainment company first, and I genuinely believe if you’re breathing, you’re our audience. We want to be in the business of speaking to everybody.”

For Ellison, movies have been a lifelong interest. He recounted his days growing up when he, his mother and sister would go to the cinema or pick from their extensive home library of video cassette tapes.

He intends to “significantly scale” the amount of content the studio produces and has entrusted his longtime deputy Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, a former Sony executive, as co-chairs of Paramount Pictures. The studio plans to concentrate on key intellectual property such as “Star Trek,” “World War Z” and “Transformers,” with Goldberg saying that “Star Trek” is a priority across the company.

Paramount executives are also interested in filmmaker-driven original films. Late last week, Paramount said it landed an original project called “High Side,” helmed by “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold, which reunites him with actor Timothée Chalamet.

In addition, Paramount Pictures plans to greenlight family films, with classic movies like “The Goonies,” “Gremlins” and “Night at the Museum” as touchstones, Goldberg said. There’s also interest in R-rated comedies, horror and stories that appeal to Middle America.

Paramount has no plans to crank out low-cost films for its Paramount+ streaming platform, said Cindy Holland, the new head of streaming for Paramount.

“The movies that we make will be made for theatrical,” Ellison said, adding that there is cultural significance to making films for the big screen.

Ellison also praised actor Tom Cruise, whom he met when he founded his Skydance Media company in 2010. Skydance co-produced “Top Gun: Maverick” and recent “Mission: Impossible” installments. Goldberg recounted how she and Greenstein called Cruise after Paramount unveiled its new leadership structure.

“It was to thank him for, frankly, the huge piece he’s been in Paramount’s history, Paramount’s present and how important he is for Paramount’s future,” Goldberg said. “‘Top Gun 3’ is a massive priority for us.”

The new corporate ownership structure gives the family of Larry Ellison (David’s billionaire father) and RedBird the ability to build the company for the future, rather than manage for quarter-by-quarter earnings.

The Ellison family now owns 50% of the company, and RedBird holds 20% — a dominant position. Regular shareholders have 30% of the stock in the new company. Shares soared more than 36% on Wednesday to $15.

The event included Ellison’s co-investor, RedBird founder Gerry Cardinale, who stressed his confidence in Paramount’s prospects.

Cardinale noted that he dispatched two of his top executives to join the company — Andy Gordon, a former Goldman Sachs banker is now Paramount’s chief operating officer and chief strategy officer, and Jeff Shell, the former NBCUniversal executive who’s now Paramount‘s president — to signify the importance of rebuilding.

“I’m betting my firm and my career on this deal,” Cardinale said.

On Wednesday, longtime Paramount shareholder Mario Gabelli sued Redstone and Paramount, alleging the deal structure disadvantaged shareholders other than Redstone, who received a premium for her stock.

As part of the deal, the Redstone family was paid $2.4 billion for their National Amusements Inc. firm, which held the controlling shares. After their considerable debts are paid, the family should come away with $1.75 billion. Paramount’s B-class shareholders received $15 a share.

Skydance and RedBird have promised investors that it will find $2 billion in cost savings, which means further belt-tightening and layoffs. Shell said he didn’t want Paramount to become a company that had perpetual layoffs, saying the plan was to have one restructuring and “then be done with it.”

The executives also showed no interest in cleaving off the cable channels, unlike Comcast or Warner Bros. Discovery, which are preparing for spinoffs. Shell said the diminished status of the channels gives the company opportunities to rebuild those brands.

In their first week, Ellison and RedBird have made big bets. On Monday, the company said it would spend $7.7 billion over seven years to lock up U.S. streaming and television rights to UFC mixed-martial arts fights for the Paramount+ streaming service and CBS.

In addition, Paramount in July agreed to pay $1.25 billion over five years to the creators of Comedy Central’s “South Park.” A separate deal with Trey Parker and Matt Stone allows the cartoon to run exclusively on Paramount+.

When asked what Paramount assets were underappreciated, Ellison talked about the broad reach of CBS, which just ended the regular television season in first place in prime-time among broadcast networks for the 17th consecutive year. He also mentioned CBS’ relationship with the NFL, Masters golf tournament and NCAA March Madness.

Gordon added, “I actually think every asset is underappreciated here.”

A mixed martial arts fight card to be held next summer at the White House is “absolutely going to happen,” Ultimate Fight Championship Chief Executive Dana White said Tuesday.

White said the UFC will stage the event July 4 to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. He added that he spoke to President Trump on Monday and is scheduled to meet with him and his daughter Ivanka in two weeks to solidify the plan.

Trump mentioned last July 4 during a kickoff of events centered on the country’s 2026 birthday celebration that he wanted to stage a UFC match on the White House South Lawn with 20,000 spectators.

“We have a lot of land there,” said Trump, who has attended several UFC matches and considers White a friend.

Now it has gone from a notion into the planning stages, which is the second thrill of the week for White. On Monday he announced that the UFC has finalized a seven-year streaming agreement with Paramount worth an average of $1.1 billion a year. The deal represents a departure from UFC’s traditional pay-per-view model.

Thirteen marquee UFC events and 30 fight nights will be televised on the Paramount+ streaming platform, with some events also planned to simulcast on CBS. Plans for UFC events in other countries are also on the table, according to Paramount.

“You have the NFL, the NBA, the UFC and soccer globally,” White told the Associated Press. “We’re coming. We’re coming for all of them.”

White, 56, has been the driving force behind the enormous growth of the UFC, which he purchased in 2001 for $2 million. He negotiated broadcast-rights deals with Fox and ESPN, then spearheaded a $4-billion sale in 2016 to TKO Group Holdings, a group led by the Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG. White remained as president and retained a stake in the new company.

The Paramount-UFC deal came on the heels of Skydance and Paramount closing their $8-billion merger — a complicated negotiation that resulted in the creation of an entertainment giant. White said he was impressed with Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison’s vision for UFC and how the plans could be activated now that Ellison is chairman and chief executive of Paramount.

“Live sports continue to be a cornerstone of our broader strategy — driving engagement, subscriber growth, and long-term loyalty,” Ellison said in a statement. “The addition of UFC’s year-round must-watch events to our platforms is a major win.”

The debut Paramount fight card is in the planning stages, with UFC officials meeting this week to arrange bouts. White said it is too early to discuss a main event for the White House card.

As a deep-pocketed producer, David Ellison helped breathe new life into Paramount franchises including “Mission: Impossible,” “Star Trek” and “Top Gun.”

But can the high-flying son of a billionaire make a full-fledged media company airworthy again? Can he use Silicon Valley money and movie business know-how to restore the legacy of one of the entertainment industry’s original studios, following a deal clinched through an act of political appeasement?

Those are the questions Hollywood talent, studio rivals and insiders will be asking as Ellison takes the controls of the new Paramount, after regulators finally approved the long-awaited $8-billion merger with his Santa Monica production company Skydance Media. The deal — two years in the making, and approved by the FCC only after a $16-million settlement with Trump and promises to mindwipe any trace of DEI from the company — is expected to close Aug. 7.

After that, Ellison, backed in large part by his father, Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, will bring in his own team to face the daunting challenges.

Chris McCarthy, the architect of Paramount’s recent streaming strategy, is out. Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon head Brian Robbins is also expected to exit while CBS chief George Cheeks is staying. The incoming management team includes former NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell, who is currently a heavyweight at Ellison’s bidding partner RedBird Capital.

Skydance Chief Creative Officer Dana Goldberg will run the film studio, and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland will play a major role at the new company. Also joining is Sony Pictures movie executive Josh Greenstein.

This may be a different team from the one that labored under outgoing controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, but it’ll be contending with most of the same problems.

Paramount is dogged by issues buffeting all legacy media companies, including the decline of traditional TV ratings, the post-COVID-19 realignment of the theatrical box office and the escalating costs of sports rights, as my colleague Stephen Battaglio and I reported last week. Those difficulties were exacerbated at Paramount by chronic underinvestment and years of shambolic leadership, as corporate governance experts have long pointed out.

Ellison has direct experience with movies, having produced many of them, including some of Paramount’s biggest hits (as well as some notable flops). He’s less steeped in running TV channels and streaming services, which have urgent needs. The scion is also coming in to make good on a promise to investors: to find $2 billion in cost cutting, which will mean layoffs and disruption.

Paramount+ has been growing, thanks in part to the NFL, CBS shows and a run of original hits including “Landman,” “1923” and “Tulsa King.” But the service has lost money for years, and the app is clunky. (It’s expected to reach full-year U.S. profitability in 2025.) McCarthy spent big bucks on talent, including Taylor Sheridan and the creators of “South Park,” enough to make Matt Stone and Trey Parker billionaires, according to Forbes.

Analysts say the service will need substantial investment in content and technology to make it competitive while also partnering with other companies to increase its reach through discounted bundles and other initiatives.

The new owners will have to decide what to do with the cable channel business, which includes such eroding brands as MTV, BET and Comedy Central.

Many observers tend to assume Ellison will eventually spin those off, following the lead of NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. In a sadly comical reminder of what can happen with a merger gone wrong, David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday announced that the two companies resulting from its pending breakup will be called — wait for it — Warner Bros. and Discovery Global.

TD Cowen analyst Doug Cruetz, in a recent note to clients, speculated that Ellison didn’t buy the Paramount assets just to “break it up for parts.”

We’ll see.

Another looming and potentially costly issue is the NFL’s relationship with CBS Sports. The change of control will trigger an early renegotiation of Paramount’s contract with the league once the transaction closes. That’s important because the NFL has significant leverage in dealmaking, considering that its games account for the vast majority of most-watched programming on television.

Ellison has promised to bring technological enhancements to Paramount. That would mean a more functional app for Paramount+ and an improved personalized recommendation system. It might mean using tech to make movies cheaper and faster. A year ago, Ellison noted a partnership between Skydance Animation and Oracle to build a so-called studio in the cloud. What technology can’t do is pick the movies people want to see, and that’s where the new leadership group will have to prove themselves.

But the biggest hurdle will be overcoming the stain covering the deal itself after the concessions required to get it over the finish line.

Paramount paid a substantial sum to make peace with President Trump, who had sued the company over CBS News’ “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 election rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The case was frivolous, 1st Amendment experts said. But the Redstone family and the Ellisons were desperate to get the deal done. As a result, the new company is starting off on a crooked foundation, as one Hollywood insider put it to me.

Stephen Colbert, speaking on “The Late Show,” called Paramount’s settlement a “big fat bribe.” Days later, he learned that his show would be ending in May. Even assuming the company told the truth in saying that the cancellation was a purely financial decision (i.e., the show was too expensive and it was losing money), the optics were bad.

Comedians responded the way comedians do. The “South Park” team, having secured a $1.5 billion deal to bring the long-running animated series to Paramount+, opened their 27th season with, effectively, a pair of middle fingers raised to Trump and their parent company.

The show depicted a flapping-headed cartoon Trump in bed with Satan, similar to its past portrayal of Saddam Hussein, and ended with an AI-generated PSA showing the president wandering the desert and stripping naked, revealing tiny, talking genitalia.

The Trump settlement cast a pall over whatever plans Ellison has. CBS News lost key figures in part due to Paramount’s push to reach a peace accord with the president (Tanya Simon being named to run “60 Minutes” is seen as a relief). But whatever you say about the corporate behind-the-scenes machinations that took place to make the deal happen, you can’t say the artists have lost their spine.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

In a return to form for Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel Studios, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” opened with a robust $118 million in the U.S. and Canada and $218 million globally, according to studio estimates, slightly outperforming prerelease projections.

This comes after middling results and poor reviews for “Captain America: Brave New World” and tepid sales (but better reviews) for “Thunderbolts*.” Last summer’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” was a $1.34-billion hit.

Like Deadpool and Wolverine, the Fantastic Four — known as Marvel’s first family — came to Disney through the company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox entertainment assets. Fox made three “Fantastic Four” movies, all bad. “First Steps” earned mostly positive reviews from critics and fans (88% on Rotten Tomatoes; “A-” from CinemaScore).

The $218-million global opening weekend was similar to that of James Gunn’s DC reboot “Superman,” released earlier this month. That film just crossed the $500 million box office milestone, with a strong $289 million domestically and a less-impressive $213 million overseas.

Theaters have been on a winning streak this summer. So far this year, ticket sales are up 12% from 2024, according to Comscore. But the rest of the season looks thin. Next weekend features Paramount’s “The Naked Gun,” Universal’s animated “Bad Guys 2” and Neon’s Sundance horror breakout “Together,” starring real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie.

Finally …

One marker of a great artist is the number and diversity of musicians who take inspiration from their work. And Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath frontman who died last week, had plenty of admirers who covered his songs.

The Times’ Mikael Wood already rounded up the Prince of Darkness’ 10 essential tracks. Here are some of the best covers, with help from Rolling Stone and Loudwire.