How Skydance Will Remake the Illustrious Culture of Warner Bros. Pictures More Than Any Owner Before

There have been many quiet Mondays at the Burbank offices of Warner Bros. Pictures, usually following a bomb like the one the studio just suffered with Tom Cruise’s “Digger.” The cryptic eco-disaster project will represent a loss of hundreds of millions when all is said and done.

But the silence this past Monday was compounded by a familiar wave of merger-induced grief, multiple sources told Variety, especially as employees observed WB Motion Picture Group co-head Pamela Abdy packing up her office in boxes. In a move that shocked some, Abdy and co-head Michael De Luca were dismissed last week as David Ellison finally homed in on his acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. De Luca and Abdy had been at the head of Warner’s film business for four years, delivering a wild series of strikes (“A Minecraft Movie”) and gutters (“The Bride!”). In addition to family photos and movie props, Abdy may have boxed up the remnants of a workplace tradition diluted by acquisitions and corporate unions over the past three decades.

Warner Bros. Pictures is poised to undergo its most dramatic cultural transformation since the 1980s under the new leadership of Skydance CEO Ellison — and specifically, his motion picture group co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein. The Ellison regime has revealed itself thus far as a shirtsleeve operation, one zeroed in on lowering costs and boosting profits. The preciousness and luxuries that made Warner Bros. a desirable home for creatives will be rightsized with tech ruthlessness, multiple high-level sources suggest.

Goldberg and Greenstein had only spent a year (albeit a productive one) as the heads of Paramount Pictures before this week’s announcement that they will preside over all film labels at the combined company. This means that De Luca and Abdy’s replacement will report into Goldberg and Greenstein, not the office of the CEO (as was the case under David Zaslav’s Discovery and John Stankey’s AT&T, for example).

“On the film side, the scale of this combination, particularly its commitment to theatrical, puts Dana and Josh at the center of the movie business,” Richard Weitz, co-chairman of WME Group, says. The power agent is alluding to Ellison’s commitment to release 30 theatrical films per year across both studios, an agreement he had to put in writing to get his merger over the finish line.

Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, who served as a top WB film executive from 1989 to 2002 before moving to Paramount to produce huge IP like “Transformers,” says the Skydance team’s dedication to movies is not just on paper.

“Looking at the two companies and their slates, I don’t think they have done 30 movies between the two in a very long time,” he says. “That is a net plus for our business, because that means more movies are getting made and more capital is being expended in creating them.”

Goldberg and Greenstein are respected by industry peers, hailing from Village Roadshow (“The Matrix,” “Ocean’s Eleven” series) and Sony Pictures, respectively. They’re now faced with the daunting task of further defining distinct identities for multiple WB labels like New Line and Clockwork.

“I worked with Josh for more than a decade, and I have a great deal of respect for him,” says Tom Rothman, Sony Pictures chief and Greenstein’s former boss. “What you need in that job is a combination of IQ and EQ. It’s managing capital allocation, but in a much more important sense, it’s managing artistic temperaments. He’s extremely capable in both regards.”

While detractors of Goldberg and Greenstein say they do not enjoy the kind of profile some competitors do on the byways of Los Angeles and in coastal elite circles, they’ve greenlit 20 films since taking office at Paramount. They’ve also signed talent deals with the Duffer Brothers, Will Smith, James Mangold, Jon M. Chu and Issa Rae (on top of a distribution pact with Legendary Entertainment).

Any successful film executive’s job comes down to superior talent relations and responsible budgeting. De Luca and Abdy certainly had the former covered (De Luca was a groomsman in Paul Thomas Anderson’s wedding; Abdy was considered a whisperer to filmmakers like Alejandro Iñárritu). “Irresponsible” spending is likely what helped them court the premium filmmakers for which Warner Bros. is renowned, one source says. “It’s easy to say yes when you don’t care what the price is,” they add.

With some $80 billion in debt on the Skydance balance sheet, carte blanche is over. But it’s not just about fiscal prudence. Unlike “carpetbaggers” Zaslav and Stankey, as another top industry player calls them, Ellison and his team consider themselves obsessed lovers of film. The pomp and “platinum” aura of Warner Bros., as one former WB exec phrases it, may be sacrificed quickly.

The lingering magic (and occasional arrogance) of Warner Bros. were holdovers from a culture built by Bob Daly and Terry Semel, insiders say. They ran the company as co-CEOs for almost two decades starting in 1980. The pair prioritized elevated popcorn hits made by substantial filmmakers. Clint Eastwood and Christopher Nolan kept bungalows on the WB lot without having overall deals. “They just wanted to be there,” one former employee says.

While the TV group at WB often was peeved that it brought in all the revenue while the film group got all the attention, the pecking order remained. A collection of Warner vets, many now in high-ranking posts elsewhere, describe a kind of “heart pull” that the studio inspires in its graduates. A crowded text chain of former employees called the “Gate 4 Club” (referring to the entrance many used to access the lot) is active across the industry. They wistfully discuss the days of Daly and Semel parking a row of brand-new Range Rovers as gifts to the cast and filmmakers of “Lethal Weapon” after a sequel hit big.

It’s doubtful any shiny SUVs will be wrapped in ribbons at Warner Bros. anytime soon. Besides, Ellison prefers the sky.