Paramount Skydance Closes $111 Billion Takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, Forming New Media Giant Skydance

Paramount Skydance Corp. completed its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, closing out a bruising, yearlong fight that pulled in a federal judge in Oakland, a dozen Democratic state attorneys general, striking writers and Hollywood's two oldest studios. The combined company, renamed Skydance, began trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "SKYD," according to a report from Variety and a disclosure Paramount Skydance filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The deal unites CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, MTV, TBS and Nickelodeon with Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., DC Studios and the streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max under a single corporate roof. It gives one company control of franchises including "Mission: Impossible," "Harry Potter" and "The Godfather," along with two of the three broadcast evening newscasts watched by American audiences each night.

The numbers

Under the terms of the merger, Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders received roughly $31.02 a share in cash, and WBD stock stopped trading on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. The all-in value of $111 billion includes Warner Bros. Discovery's assumed debt. The transaction was financed with $47 billion in new Class B equity priced at $12 a share, led by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, RedBird Capital Partners, the advisory firm LionTree, and the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, while debt financing was arranged by Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo Global Management.

Skydance chairman and chief executive David Ellison, Larry Ellison's son, is targeting more than $6 billion in annual "run-rate synergies" within three years, a figure the company says it reached by applying the cost-cutting approach used after Skydance Media's earlier, smaller merger with Paramount Global. Executives have told staff that reaching those targets will require eliminating thousands of jobs across the former Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery workforces over the coming months, even as the company says most of the savings will come from technology, procurement and marketing rather than headcount. The combined company carries close to $80 billion in net debt against annual revenue the companies have put at nearly $70 billion.

How the deal got here

Ellison's pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery followed Skydance Media's own $8 billion takeover of the old Paramount Global in 2025, which created Paramount Skydance and installed Ellison as its chief executive. Paramount Skydance then spent much of 2026 chasing Warner Bros. Discovery, outlasting a rival bid from Netflix for the same assets before its offer was accepted.

The U.S. Department of Justice cleared the merger on June 12 after an eight-month antitrust review, concluding without requiring any divestitures that the deal was "not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers" in streaming, linear television or film distribution. But that federal green light did not end the fight. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, joined by eleven other states, had already moved in a July 13 emergency court filing to block the acquisition outright, warning that the combined company would control roughly a third of theatrical film distribution and basic cable programming nationwide. "The unlawful merger of Warner Bros. and Paramount would harm movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.," Bonta's office said at the time.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in Oakland granted the states a temporary restraining order in late July, freezing the merger while litigation proceeded. The Writers Guild of America separately sued, arguing the tie-up would cost writers' and journalists' jobs; that case is recorded on the federal court docket in Faust v. Paramount Skydance Corporation. Facing the prospect of a costly trial, Paramount Skydance reached a settlement with the Writers Guild on Sept. 21, agreeing to pay $17.5 million into the guild's health plan, cover its legal fees, and bar layoffs in CBS News' broadcast division for five years. The guild was blunt about why it settled rather than fought on. "We continue to believe the merger will cause damage to writers and the industry at large," the WGA said, while acknowledging it lacked the government backing or resources to pursue the case through trial alone, as TheWrap reported at the time.

Paramount Skydance struck a parallel settlement with the twelve state attorneys general that imposed its own conditions: a requirement to divest its 49% stake in Miramax if the studio fails to release at least 30 theatrical films a year, separate pay-television carriage negotiations between the Paramount and Warner Bros. television units, a $1.5 billion floor on increased U.S. production spending, an editorial oversight board for CNN, and a commitment to keep significant operations headquartered in California. Judge Martínez-Olguín approved that settlement on Oct. 1, clearing the last legal obstacle to closing.

"Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry," Ellison said in a statement announcing the closing. "From the start, our ambition was to bring these two storied studios together and create a stronger competitor, with the talent, resources, and reach to tell great stories in every genre, on every platform, for audiences everywhere. Now that ambition is a reality."

Who is affected

The most immediate impact falls on the combined workforce of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, where executives have signaled thousands of layoffs are coming as redundant corporate functions, streaming technology stacks and marketing operations are merged. CBS News and CNN journalists, along with the writers covered by the Writers Guild settlement, have a five-year reprieve from cuts at CBS's broadcast division specifically, but no comparable protection applies elsewhere in the company, including at CNN or within Warner Bros.' television and film divisions.

Mark Thompson continues to lead CNN and Bari Weiss remains editor in chief of CBS News, both roles unchanged by the closing itself, though the new editorial oversight board for CNN required under the state settlement gives outside journalists a say in how the network is run going forward. Mattel's former chief executive, Ynon Kreiz, has joined as co-chief executive to run day-to-day integration, with Ellison's full senior leadership team announced Monday, a day before the deal closed.

Audiences and distributors are affected too: the merger leaves Skydance negotiating carriage and pricing for Paramount+ and HBO Max, two of the largest subscription streaming services, from a single corporate parent, and gives it leverage in theatrical and cable-carriage negotiations that rivals and independent theater chains had warned regulators about throughout the review.

What happens next

Skydance's immediate priorities, according to its own statements, are integrating streaming technology and cloud infrastructure between Paramount+ and HBO Max, executing the announced layoffs, and hitting the $6 billion synergy target over three years. The settlement terms with the twelve states remain enforceable conditions rather than one-time promises: the Miramax divestment trigger, the CNN editorial board, and the California headquarters commitment will all require monitoring over the life of the agreement. Paramount Skydance has already told investors it expects the same "operational playbook" that it used following the 2025 Paramount formation to guide cost cuts at the newly enlarged company. Whether that playbook also reshapes the broader industry — inviting further consolidation among remaining independent studios and distributors now that one of the largest-ever media mergers has closed — is the question executives, rivals and regulators will be watching next.