Skydance leadership team: who runs the company now the Paramount–Warner Bros deal has closed

The Skydance leadership team is now in charge after the biggest merger in Hollywood history. Paramount Skydance completed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday 6 October 2026, and the combined company is now called Skydance. Here is who runs its films, streaming, TV and news, what the deal’s conditions require, and what is still to be confirmed.

By Editorial Team

What we know

• The new name (FACT). The combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery is named Skydance, as Paramount Skydance announced on 5 October 2026 and confirmed when the deal completed.
• The leadership team (FACT). Chairman and chief executive David Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz, the former Mattel boss, announced the executives who report to them now that the deal has completed.
• The deal has closed (FACT). Skydance Corporation, formerly Paramount Skydance, announced on 6 October 2026 that it had completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery after receiving all required regulatory approvals. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders received $31.01666668 in cash per share, and WBD shares have stopped trading on Nasdaq.
• New share listing (FACT). Skydance Class B shares begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD from 6 October, according to the same completion statement.

The Skydance leadership team, division by division

According to the company’s statement, these executives will report directly to Ellison and Kreiz:

• Film: Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, co-chairs of the Skydance Motion Picture Group, covering Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures.
• DC: James Gunn and Peter Safran stay on as co-chairmen of DC Studios.
• Streaming: Casey Bloys, who has run HBO and HBO Max content, becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance’s direct-to-consumer business, covering HBO Max and Paramount+ originals.
• Television: George Cheeks becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance TV. That includes Warner Bros. Television, CBS Studios, Paramount Television, the CBS network, sports and more than 50 cable channels, including TNT, Discovery, BET, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
• Business: JB Perrette, previously Warner Bros. Discovery’s head of global streaming and games, is co-chair and chief business officer of both the TV and streaming divisions.
• News: Mark Thompson stays as chairman and editor-in-chief of CNN Worldwide, and Bari Weiss stays as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
• Corporate: Andy Gordon becomes president. Dennis Cinelli stays as chief financial officer. Makan Delrahim is chief legal officer, Dane Glasgow is chief product officer, Rebecca Mall is chief marketing officer and Melissa Zukerman is chief communications officer.

The company says a fuller list of senior executives will follow soon, now that the deal has closed.

Who is missing

The most notable absences are Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. Variety confirms they are not joining the new company, which matches earlier trade reporting that we noted in our merger closing-date explainer. Their final release as standalone Warner Bros. bosses, Tom Cruise’s Digger, opened weakly last weekend, as we covered in Verity box office: Digger stalls at $8m.

Bloys’s appointment is significant for viewers. It puts the executive behind The Last of Us, The White Lotus and House of the Dragon in charge of original programming for both HBO Max and Paramount+. The statement also says the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone series is due to debut on Christmas this year. The completion statement says the two streaming services will be unified into a single service over time, but the company has not given a timetable or said whether prices or names will change, so we are not assuming any of that.

What the deal requires

The final barrier was a lawsuit from California and 11 other US states. Under a consent decree approved by a federal court on 30 September, according to a Paramount Skydance filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the combined company must:

• release at least 30 films a year in each of the first two years, and 32 a year in years three to five, with further rules on wide releases, independent films and cinema windows;
• spend at least $300 million a year more on US production than the two companies’ combined 2025 levels; and
• keep Pluto TV as a free, ad-supported service.

NBC News also reports that the settlement requires an editorial board to oversee CNN and CBS News. The film commitments matter outside the US too, because cinemas in markets such as the UK and Nigeria rely on a steady flow of Hollywood releases.

Why this matters beyond Hollywood

Skydance now owns two of the five traditional big Hollywood film studios, HBO, CNN, CBS and franchises from DC and Harry Potter to Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. The original agreement in February valued Warner Bros. Discovery at about $110 billion including debt. Variety, which values the completed deal at $111 billion, reports that the new company carries about $80 billion in net debt. Skydance says it has nearly $70 billion in annual revenue and is targeting more than $6 billion in savings within three years. That usually means cuts: the company has not announced job numbers, although Variety reports that thousands of jobs are expected to go over the coming months.

For audiences, the clearest near-term questions are which films get made, whether streaming prices rise, and how HBO Max and Paramount+ are packaged in markets outside the US. For more on how streaming success is measured, see our Netflix Top 10 views explainer.

What happens next

• The wider executive leadership list is promised soon.
• Watch for details of how and when HBO Max and Paramount+ will be combined, any layoffs and the Warner Bros. film slate, including Dune: Part Three in December.

More international coverage: International Entertainment.

Photo credits: Featured image: Paramount Pictures’ Melrose Gate, Hollywood, January 2026. Photo: Laura Alier, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Source. In-article image: Warner Bros. entrance sign, Burbank. Photo: Headsillroll, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source.

Sources

• Skydance Corporation: Paramount completes acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (6 Oct 2026, via PR Newswire)
• Variety: Paramount-Warner Bros. merger officially closes (6 Oct 2026)
• Paramount Skydance: CEO leadership team for Skydance (5 Oct 2026)
• Variety: David Ellison names Skydance leadership team (5 Oct 2026)
• CNBC: Ellison and Kreiz announce Skydance leadership team (5 Oct 2026)
• Warner Bros. Discovery: anticipated closing date (30 Sep 2026)
• Paramount Skydance 8-K filing on the States Consent Decree (via StockTitan)
• NBC News: Judge allows Paramount to close its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery
• Paramount: agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (27 Feb 2026)