The Warner Bros. bosses behind Sinners and One Battle After Another are out as Digger flops
With the Warner-Paramount merger looming, the cull has begun — but who’s on the chopping block?
The Hollywood chessboard is being flipped yet again, as Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance are about to officially tie the knot. We’re just days away from one of the largest studio mergers in recent memory. If you’ve missed the backroom drama: yes, there’s been protest, lawsuits, finger-pointing, sloppy concessions — all the fun of American media consolidation. But the main player walking away with the crown is David Ellison, and he is wasting precisely no time shaping Hollywood’s future in his image.
The Ellison Ascendancy
Ellison is set to become a high priest in the church of American entertainment (no exaggeration, given the scale here). He’s already protecting his key assets, keeping Casey Bloys — the brains behind HBO Max — in control of the streamer lineup, even with Paramount+ folded into the new Skydance hierarchy. That pair of streaming platforms will both sit under the Skydance umbrella, but don’t expect huge overnight changes unless you’re an executive in a plush office — in which case, it’s time to update your CV.
With the merger closing next week, there’s one glaring embarrassment front and centre: Digger, with a reported $180 million price tag, is crashing at the box office. The context here is important: Warner Bros. recently looked invincible when it delivered Barbie, a billion-dollar juggernaut, but that sugar rush has worn off fast. Warner's theatrical revenue is actually down 5.6% compared to last year. Absorbing Paramount at a time when you’ve just dropped another blockbuster-sized dud is not anyone’s idea of ideal timing — and, predictably, the studio is now clearing house.
Warner Bros. theatrical revenue has slipped 5.6% since this time last year.
Top Brass Out, Drama In
As first reported by Puck journo Matt Belloni — who broke it after a tip-off at a leaving party for the outgoing Warner Bros. Discovery CEO — the current Warner Bros. production chiefs, Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, will not be surviving the merger. That’s despite a string of recent hits for Warners, including Sinners, A Minecraft Movie, Weapons, and One Battle After Another (plus, let’s not forget, an eye-watering 11 Academy Awards among their output). Still, Hollywood loves a bit of ruthless timing — out they go.
Digger Divide: Audiences Split, Del Toro Dives In
For those wondering whether Digger really deserves its belly flop at the box office: critics and audiences are properly divided, and the debate is now playing out in public. After IGN lobbed a grenade, saying the cinema experience 'won’t change your mind on Digger, and the laughs that are there still will be when it hits HBO Max,' director Guillermo del Toro wasn’t having any of it. Ever the defender of cinemas, he took them on directly:
Guillermo del Toro shot back on social media: 'Entirely Petty headline. Love it or not. And, yes, I do. The film delivers in scale, ambition and reach at a theatrical screen level. Daring, bold and cinematically complex. Decidedly a theatrical experience.'
There’s your battle line: half the critics and audience are thumbs up, half are thumbs down, and there’s del Toro, yelling from the balcony that proper films should be seen on massive screens. Classic cinema bickering, honestly.
What Next for the Warner-Paramount Megacorp?
Back to Ellison: now he’s taken to Twitter/X (honestly, why do any of these moguls post on there?) to spell out that Warner Bros. and Paramount will exist as separate sub-brands inside Skydance. This isn’t just branding nonsense, it’s partly legal — as per an agreement Ellison signed with 12 state attorneys general, the merged company has to let the studios keep their unique identities rather than become one grey blob.
Ellison explained his stance on legacy and branding, basically spelling out that you don’t just sweep a century of movie history under the carpet for the sake of a new holding company. Here’s what he told followers about the decision-making:
Ellison posted online: 'Both have distinct identities, extraordinary legacies and brands that have resonated with audiences for generations.'
In a follow-up, he said the new company needed a label of its own — but not at the expense of the 'extraordinary brands' like Warner Bros. and Paramount. If you’re a fan of old studio banners and the idea that history still counts for something in Hollywood, this particular bit might be mildly reassuring.