Skydance To Make Paramount & Warner Bros Lots Specialized, Each Housing Film Or TV/Streaming

Television and streaming are primed for a major upgrade — getting a whole historic lot all to themselves. The settlement in the state AGs’ lawsuit requires Skydance, the combined company of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, to keep both the Paramount and Warner Bros. lots for at least the next five years.

During a press event on the Paramount lot Tuesday, hours after the merger had closed, Skydance CEO David Ellison revealed that the two lots, each historically and currently housing film and TV, would be organized differently.

“We absolutely will keep both lots, and you’ll probably see us organize film on one, television/streaming on another, and we’ll go back and forth between the two, as well as to the East Coast when required, as well as our Santa Monica offices for animation,” he said of himself and Skydance co-CEO Ynon Kreiz.

Ellison would not elaborate further but based on the sizes alone — Warner Bros. in Burbank being significantly larger than the Hollywood-based Paramount — film would likely be based on the Paramount lot and television and streaming on the Warner Bros. lot, I hear.

Such delineation would also jibe with Paramount — and its iconic arches — being steeped in movie history and a symbol of the golden era of cinema as the only major studio still located in Hollywood.

The division would mean status quo for Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, co-chairs the the motion picture group, who are based at Paramount, and Channing Dungey, head of Warner Bros. Television Group and Skyance’s basic cable networks, who is at Warner Bros.

It would require a cross-town move for George Cheeks, Co-Chair and Chief Content Officer, Skydance TV; JB Perrette, Co-Chair & Chief Business Officer, Skydance TV and DTC; Casey Bloys, Co-Chair and Chief Content Officer, DTC; as well as CBS Studios President David Stapf and Paramount TV Studios President Matt Thunell and their teams.

Putting all TV operations together would bring CBS Entertainment, CBS Studios and CBS Media Ventures back to a studio lot after the divisions left CBS Studios Center (Radford) after it was sold in 2022 to relocate to the Sunset Gower offices in Hollywood that also house other Paramount units.

Then there are the combined streaming operations that will greatly benefit from moving into one place as they are currently scattered into several locations between HBO Max and Paramount+, including HBO’s offices in Culver City, the Paramount lot, and the Nickelodeon West Coast headquarters in Burbank.

Skydance’s Direct-to-Consumer division, headed by Bloys and Perrette, could move to the Warner Bros. Second Century Development adjacent to the Warner Bros. lot where HBO had intended to relocate before the WBD sales process put the process on hold.