skydance

David Ellison said the merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance — the moniker he picked nearly two decades ago when the tech scion began building his Hollywood empire.

Ellison, currently the chairman and chief executive of Paramount, is aiming to finalize the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Tuesday. Then the combined company will assume the name and logo of his once small studio.

“We chose this name for a few important reasons,” Ellison wrote Friday in an X post. “As we bring Paramount and Warner Bros. together, we wanted to preserve what has made each of these studios iconic. Both have distinct identities, extraordinary legacies and brands that have resonated with audiences … We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one.”

By calling the company “Skydance,” Ellison said the merged entity would have “an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. — and all our extraordinary brands — to remain in the spotlight.”

In Hollywood, there had been much speculation over what jumbled mash-up of the corporate titles would be used, with WarnerMount and Paramount-Warner Bros. often mentioned as possibilities.

Both companies boast century-old studios, beloved media brands and a recent past that has included several fraught mergers. When AT&T sold WarnerMedia to David Zaslav’s Discovery in 2022, he selected Warner Bros. Discovery as the corporate name.

The merger is quickly reaching the finish line after U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín on Wednesday signed a settlement agreement, effectively ending an antitrust lawsuit brought in July by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general who initially fought the formation of a new Hollywood colossus. Paramount now has won approvals by nearly 70 regulators for the industry-reshaping deal.

For more than a decade, Paramount has been the smallest of the major media companies, owning CBS, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue studio. With the $111-billion merger with Warner, Skydance will gain more valuable assets including HBO, CNN, TBS, Food Network and Warner Bros. film and television studios, along with their massive libraries that include the Harry Potter, “Lord of the Rings,” and DC Comics franchises.

Earlier this week, Ellison announced he was bringing Ynon Kreiz, who has served as the CEO of toymaker Mattel for eight years, to run the new entity’s day-to-day operations. Kreiz, 61, brings years of operational experience that Paramount’s top executives had lacked.

Paramount released details of Kreiz’s contract on Thursday in a regulatory filing, saying he would receive an $5 million annual salary and an annual target bonus of $4.9 million. He will also qualify for a signing bonus of $31.5 million to come over to the new company, paid through restricted stock units.

In addition, HBO Chairman Casey Bloys is widely expected to become head of the merged company’s streaming programming. Paramount’s streaming chief Cindy Holland exited the company earlier this week to make way for Bloys.

During a Thursday appearance at the Bloomberg News Screentime media conference in Hollywood, Bloys declined to discuss his presumed new role. But he suggested that that Ellison’s company might bundle HBO Max and Paramount+ services, allowing the two services to remain for now, rather than try to fold them into one gigantic offering.

Skydance will carry than $80-billion in debt, much of it acquired to retire the holdings of Warner Bros. Discovery investors at $31.17 a share. The company also has promised investors that it would find $6 billion in cost-cuts within three years.

During a separate appearance at the Bloomberg conference, RedBird Capital Partners founder Gerry Cardinale, a Paramount investor and board member, said finding $6 billion in cuts would be relatively easy, and would not be focused solely on layoffs. It would include combining the technology stacks for the various streaming platforms.

But Cardinale acknowledged layoffs would be part of the cost-cuts, a prospect that frightened many in Hollywood after endless waves of job cuts at the two companies.

Warner’s outgoing chief executive Zaslav will leave with a golden parachute valued at about $887 million, which includes cash, stock and options valued at more than $550 million, according to regulatory filings.

In addition, Warner board members separately agreed to pay Zaslav’s tax bills, which could approach $330 million.