48 Hours: HBO Comes in Hot to Market — Even as Skydance Shudders

HBO has come roaring into the market in the first 48 hours of the new Skydance era. Agency sources say Casey Bloys’ team has been “really active” since the deal closed, taking steps that one agent says would have been hard to imagine even days ago. “They’re making moves I’d have thought were hard to do right now,” the agent tells me. 

That may be the clearest early signal yet of where David Ellison intends to put his money. It’s also arriving just as nearly every other part of the new Skydance empire is confronting some version of the opposite question: where to cut, consolidate, combine or wait.

Ellison and Ynon Kreiz made the rounds Tuesday on Day 1 of the Skydance era, first stopping for a town hall with 60,000 Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery employees that was virtually streamed from the Warners lot in Burbank. A few hours later, the Skydance co-CEOs met with press for a briefing from Stage 3 on the Paramount lot in Hollywood. Their sentiments at both were choreographed in sync: It wasn’t easy to close this deal but the new company has what it takes to go “toe to toe with the biggest competitors” in streaming and beyond. 

“We have the capability to transform this business as the most technologically capable media company, to be the No. 1 destination for talent, and to be able to operate efficiently,” Ellison said at Paramount. “We think the future is incredibly bright for our business, for the creative community, and for the industry.” 

Now Day 2 arrives — and the hard part. Ellison says he wants to “turn the page” and rebuild trust with the creative community. Here’s hoping! But he simultaneously must find $6 billion in promised synergies, investing in growth and avoiding the spending wars of deep-pocketed rivals. Those goals are about to collide. I dialed up agents, executives, showrunners and insiders at both Paramount and WBD — including attendees at Tuesday’s town hall — to identify the key problems already occupying Hollywood:

• When layoffs will begin — and how brutal they could be
• How and when Paramount+ and HBO Max merge
• Whom Bloys keeps, promotes — and cuts
• The top Par+ executive who’s hoping to stay on under Bloys — and why he’d be smart to keep them
• Where Ellison will invest “responsibly” as he swears off spending wars with richer rivals
• Why three separate TV studios may make sense for now — but can’t possibly last
• How Channing Dungey will manage a suddenly enormous sinking cable portfolio