Paramount closed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, handing tech scion David Ellison control of a combined company now called Skydance and one of the largest collections of film, television, and news assets in Hollywood.
The deal immediately places Skydance among the industry’s leading competitors, alongside streaming powers such as Netflix and YouTube and just behind Disney and Amazon. It brings under one roof many of the studios’ most valuable properties, along with the news operations of CNN.
Ellison moved quickly to assert control. By Tuesday morning, monitors across CNN’s Manhattan headquarters displayed the Skydance corporate logo, and he had scheduled a companywide town hall for that afternoon.
“Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry,” Ellison said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited to get to work.”
The NY Times reports the prize was hard-fought. Ellison wrested Warner Bros. Discovery from Netflix after a monthslong contest in which he made nine offers. The transaction also closed over the objections of a coalition of state attorneys general who sued to block it on antitrust grounds.