It’s unclear if Paramount’s deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery will ultimately go through. Sure, the Ellisons have been sucking up to the guy in the White House to make sure it does, but nothing is for certain just yet. That said, if it does go through, Paramount CEO David Ellison has a plan for how things are going to work.
Speaking with shareholders today, Ellison said that there’s a commitment to theatrical releases, with WB and Paramount both putting out 15 movies a year, and a commitment to the 45-day theatrical window. Damn.
“As we have said consistently, we are committed to delivering a broad pipeline of high quality storytelling, including 15 theatrical films per year per studio, for a total of at least 30 films annually.”
Ellison added, “We really believe that movies should be seen in theaters.”
That will be music to the ears of exhibitors, who had feared Netflix shortening the release window (CEO Ted Sarandos also promised 45 days) and moving some major releases directly to streaming. Ellison is making a promise to do just the opposite.
“We said from Day 1 when we acquired Paramount that we weren’t going to be in the business of making movies directly for streaming,” Ellison said.
For those concerned about DC Studios, Ellison plans to keep James Gunn and Peter Safran in place, citing Superman as one of WB’s “powerhouse slate” from 2025. WB was the first studio ever to gross more than $4B in a single year. Interestingly, Ellison didn’t have anything to say about Sinners and One Battle After Another, two Academy Awards favorites that I guarantee you the dictator-in-chief doesn’t like.
Ellison also plans to merge HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single streaming platform, with HBO maintaining a level of independence.
We’ll see about all of this. Ellison is making a lot of promises, and they sound pretty good. The bigger concern for some of us is what he plans to do with the news outlets, such as CNN, but this isn’t the place to complain about that.
