This crazy project, reported by The Wall Street Journalwould target the WB set: its wired channels, its film studios, its series and even the HBO Max platform. The idea is not yet engraved in marble, but the rumor agitates Hollywood and Wall Street. Warner’s actions have soared, as well as those of Paramount Skydance.
A consolidation and lots of questions
If the operation was born, it would bring together two jugns with impressive catalogs. On the Warner side, we find DC films, the Harry Potter saga, the planetary success of the film Barbieand cult series like Game of Thrones, Succession or The White Lotus. Paramount is not to be outdone with heavy goods vehicles like Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Top Gunfilms Transformers or family licenses like Bob the sponge.
The timing is in any case spicy: Warner Bros. Discovery had just announced his split into two companies. On the one hand, Warner Bros., which will bring together cinema, television and video games, with legendary names like DC Studios, HBO, HBO Max or New Line Cinema. On the other, Discovery Global, charged with all the wired channels, from CNN to Cartoon Network via TLC and HGTV.
In this great meccano, the leaders have already been appointed: David Zaslav, current boss of the group, pilot Warner Bros., while the director Gunnar Wiedenfels will take the lead of Discovery Global. Not sure that this new organization has time to breathe so paramount Skydance really hit the door …
It must be said that Warner has a long tradition of changes of names and structures: HBO GO become HBO Max, simply renamed Max, then returned to HBO Max this year. Spectators and employees start to be used to the roller coaster of branding. If this operation was to be carried out, a large number of questions would be pending, in particular the fate of Paramount+: could the streaming service merge with HBO Max?
By trying an approach before the split of Warner, David Ellison (patron of Paramount Skydance and son of Larry, the richest man in the world and founder of Oracle) hopes to cut the grass under the foot of potential rivals like Amazon or Apple, always on the lookout in the streaming. But such a rapprochement would not fail to attract the attention of the American authorities, who closely monitor the concentrations in entertainment.
The hypothesis of a Paramount-Warner wedding illustrates in any case the permanent Hollywood musical chairs. Between mergers, splits, rebrandings and redemptions, difficult to follow the wire.
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