After the expected close of their merger, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will together be known as Skydance.
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| Skydance |
CEO David Ellison revealed the new name Friday, October 2 in a post on X. The $110 billion merger is projected to be finalized on Tuesday, October 6 after a year-long pursuit by Ellison and a two-month delay caused by antitrust lawsuits by 12 states and the Writers Guild of America.
“What once was the peak, is now just the beginning,” Ellison wrote. “Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture. By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history – we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
The choice of the name, he said, stemmed from several objectives. One is to preserve the history of Paramount and Warner Bros. as individual entities under the Skydance umbrella. “We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one. Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. – and all our extraordinary brands – to remain in the spotlight.”
When Skydance acquired Paramount in August 2025, the company wanted to take advantage of Paramount’s familiar consumer brand while also emphasizing Skydance as the corporate parent. That meant the official name was “Paramount, a Skydance Corporation,” which was later streamlined to “Paramount Skydance Corporation.”
Before the two large media companies combined, the new entity also faced the legal obstacle of an antitrust lawsuit by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America, which labeled it an illegal monopoly. The settlement of the lawsuits, laid out in a 5-year consent decree, requires separation of the Paramount and WBD operations in several business areas. It also tries to guard against one of the major studios being dissolved, as has been the fear of merger opponents. Those precautions meant that a name appearing to favor one merger partner over the other would also be a potential problem.
In the absence of any official guidance on the name, colloquial handles like “WarnaMount” or “ParaBros” became commonplace. One stark reality of the new identity is that Discovery Communications, which went public in 2008, two decades after the Discovery Channel lit up as a cable network, will now no longer have its name in lights.
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Post-Merger Skydance Keeping Both HBO Max & Paramount+ Streaming Brands
More indication that the newly-christened combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery company would bundle the two flagship streamers, Paramount+ and HBO Max, instead of merging them into one.
The video released earlier today by Paramount CEO David Ellison to announce that the new company will carry the name of his old one, Skydance, ended with a slide featuring the new moniker surrounded by what were positioned as the key, most valuable brands of the merged company. (You can see it [above].) It included the logos of Paramount, Warner Bros., DC, CBS, CNN, Nickelodeon, as well as both HBO Max and Paramount+.
Since Paramount was already represented, also including Paramount+ feels intentional, along with the choice of HBO Max vs. the legacy HBO brand.
Paramount (which will become Skydance on Oct. 6 when the WBD acquisition closes) is yet to officially confirm how it will combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a streaming operation expected to be overseen by Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content.
Asked yesterday whether the two platforms, which are considered pretty complimentary in their offerings, would be bundled vs. fully integrated, he hinted that a bundle may be the way to go.
“I don’t want to comment on what is going to happen or anything like that, but I would point to the HBO Max-Disney bundle, which has been very successful,” he said, adding, “So, could you see something like that happening? That would make a lot of sense.”
Both streaming brands making Skydance’s MVP list would seem to support that idea too.
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Skydance Putting All 3 TV Studios Under George Cheeks: Warner Bros. TV, CBS Studios, PTVS – The Dish
More elements of the proposed post-WBD merger Skydance‘s executive structure are coming into focus ahead of the Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery transaction closing on Tuesday.
As Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg are poised to oversee Skydance’s movie studios, Warner Bros and Paramount, another senior executive on Paramount CEO David Ellison’s team, Chair of TV Media George Cheeks, would be doing the same with the combined company’s three TV studios, sources said. (This is being done in streaming too, with HBO’s Casey Bloys in line to run the combo of HBO Max and Paramount+.)
As part of his current portfolio, Cheeks oversees CBS Studios, something he has done since joining then-ViacomCBS in 2020, with CBS Studios President David Stapf reporting to him. I hear he will now add oversight of Warner Bros Television and Paramount Television Studios, with Channing Dungey, currently Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros Television Group and US Networks, and PTVS President Matt Thunell both staying on and reporting to him.
It is part of a role expansion for Cheeks post-merger, which is said to also include some sort of oversight of cable brands on the WBD side. (According to the settlement with the 12 state attorneys general, “Paramount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately.”) In his current post, Cheeks oversees all linear Paramount networks, including CBS (entertainment, sports and news), MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET.
The consolidation makes sense. For instance, Thunell, well-liked by Ellison from their tenure together at Skydance, currently reports to Goldberg who, alongside Greenstein, will have their hands full running both movie studios.
There had been some speculation that Dungey, given the size and output of Warner Bros TV and her stature as a top TV executive with clout and connections in the industry, may report directly to the CEOs of the combined company as she does now at WBD.
The move would keep the number of direct reports to Ellison (and now co-CEO Ynon Kreiz) across film, TV and streaming on par with what they were at Paramount Skydance, with Bloys (replacing Cindy Holland, who just stepped down), Goldberg & Greenstein and Cheeks.
The combination also would position the three TV studios for future consolidation. It took Disney six years after the acquisition of Fox assets to fully merge the company’s three TV studios — 20th Television, ABC Signature and Touchstone Television — which was done in two stages.
CBS Studios has the most clearly defined lane of the three studios as the primary supplier to CBS (as well as home of Star Trek and an opportunistic third-party seller).
As things currently sit, there is some overlap between Warner Bros Television and PTVS.
They each have been tasked with mining the IP of their sister film studios (which explained Goldberg’s oversight of PTVS) and have been main suppliers to their sibling streamers HBO Max and Paramount+, respectively. Their common playing area is the open streaming market, as both are actively selling outside and have hits on multiple platforms.
Over the past couple of years, Warner Bros Television, historically the largest independent TV studio that produced Friends, ER and The Big Bang Theory, has pulled away from developing for broadcast where it still has hit shows in ABC’s Abbott Elementary and CBS’ Big Bang spinoff Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage and Fox’s sophomore drama Memory of a Killer. That is because networks increasingly stay in-house, which helps makes the economics of broadcast work but essentially shuts out third-party suppliers.
It is unclear whether that would change now that WBTV would be vertically integrated with a broadcast network, CBS, for the first time, but CBS Studios is pretty dialed in on the CBS brand and its needs, producing the NCIS and Fire Country franchises, Matlock and Ghosts for the network, as well as Little House On the Prairie for Netflix.
Recent WBTV highlights include the continuous success of The Pitt, which just repeated as the winner of the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy, the return of Ted Lasso, and the breakout debuts of Rooster and Big Bang spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, which have been renewed for Season 2. The studio has coming up the buzzy Harry Potter series.
Thunell Frankenstein-ed PTVS last fall when he was tasked with integrating together Skydance Television and all cable production units of Paramount, including Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, Nickelodeon live-action and Awesomeness, into the new studio. The company, which produces the entire Taylor Sheridan slate for Paramount+, just scored renewals for both its flagship drama Reacher and its spinoff Negaley.
While he comes from a legal/business background, Cheeks is known for his creative involvement in the brands he oversees. (He is credited with identifying the franchise potential of CBS’ Fire Country, for example.) In addition to being in charge of CBS Studios for the past six years, Cheeks’ TV studio experience includes a stint as Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal Content Studios.
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New Name of Paramount-Warner Bros. Unveiled: Skydance
The soon-to-merge Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery officially has a name: It’s simply going to be “Skydance,” according to chairman and CEO David Ellison.
In the end, Ellison picked the name of his original film production company, Skydance Media, to encompass everything that is getting stuffed into the new conglomerate.
The deal forming the new Skydance is set to close Oct. 6, the companies have announced. The merger will combine two of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios; the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services; and TV businesses including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, Food Network and more. The new company’s entertainment franchises will span Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, “Game of Thrones” and other HBO hits, the DC Universe, “Yellowstone,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Top Gun” and the Nickelodeon kids’ empire.
Skydance will be led by chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, the former Mattel chief who will join the company Oct. 5.
The company plans to move its Class B Common Stock from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange, where it will begin trading on Oct. 6. The company intends to change the ticker symbol for the stock from “PSKY” to “SKYD.” It also intends to amend its certificate of incorporation to change the company’s name to “Skydance Corporation.”
“Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture,” Ellison wrote in a post on X Friday announcing the Skydance name, the first tweet on a newly created account. “By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history — we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
Ellison continued, “We chose this name for a few important reasons. First and foremost, as we bring Paramount and Warner Bros. together, we wanted to preserve what has made each of these studios iconic. Both have distinct identities, extraordinary legacies and brands that have resonated with audiences for generations. We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one. Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. — and all our extraordinary brands — to remain in the spotlight.”
“We have big goals for Skydance, and we intend to pursue them with passion, imagination and a willingness to take smart risks,” Ellison wrote. “At the same time, we will honor what makes Paramount and Warner Bros. special — giving both studios the opportunity to grow, tell more great stories and bring those stories to even broader audiences around the world, powered by the scale and capabilities of Skydance. I couldn’t be more excited about what we’re going to build together.”
Ellison ultimately prevailed in his yearlong campaign to swing a massive $111 billion deal to merge Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, including outbidding Netflix (which had an agreement to buy Warner Bros.’ streaming and studios businesses) and settling an antitrust lawsuit by 12 states seeking to block the deal.
The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal cleared its last hurdle after a judge overseeing the 12-state antitrust lawsuit on Sept. 30 approved the settlement between Paramount and the state attorneys general.
Industry wags had playfully dubbed the pending combo as “ParaBros” and “WarnerMount,” but no one expected either one of those to be the official company moniker.
Skydance will have a mountain of debt, projected to be north of $80 billion, after assuming the debt burdens of previous M&A incurred by Paramount and WBD and raising new debt financing. Paramount is issuing about $42.4 billion in bonds and is additionally taking out $8.5 billion and €850 million in new loans to help fund the Warner Bros. deal and repay existing debt.
The new company will be controlled by David Ellison and his father, Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, alongside Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners.
Larry Ellison has personally guaranteed $46.7 billion in equity financing for the WBD takeover. In addition, Paramount has lined up about $24 billion in commitments from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. According to Paramount, the three Middle Eastern funds will own 38.5% of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros.
In addition to the hiring of Mattel’s Kreiz, the company’s new leadership is coming into focus.
Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, co-heads of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, will leave post-merger, sources told Variety. Paramount film heads Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein are in line to oversee both movie studios.
Meanwhile, Casey Bloys, head of WBD’s HBO and HBO Max, is poised to assume oversight of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. streaming business after Cindy Holland announced to staffers that she was stepping down from her role running Paramount+ and other direct-to-consumer businesses. Ellison has held preliminary talks with CNN chief Mark Thompson about staying on after the merger, sources told Variety. The prospect of Thompson continuing at the helm came as a relief to CNN personnel, who have been worried that Bari Weiss, the “anti-woke” media entrepreneur Ellison put in charge of CBS News and “60 Minutes,” might extend her fiefdom to include the news cabler.
Here’s Ellison’s post [above] announcing the Skydance name, which includes a sizzle reel highlighting the merged companies’ entertainment properties [.]
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Channing Dungey Poised For Expanded Post-Merger Role Overseeing Paramount & WBD Cable Networks – The Dish
EXCLUSIVE: In addition to Casey Bloys and George Cheeks, the television/streaming structure of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery, recently named Skydance, would include expanded responsibilities for Channing Dungey who would be taking over the Paramount cable networks, I hear.
As Deadline revealed Friday, Cheeks, Paramount’s Chair of TV Media who currently oversees CBS Studios, is poised to add oversight of Warner Bros Television and Paramount Television Studios, with Dungey, Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros Television Group and US Networks, and PTVS President Matt Thunell both reporting to him alongside CBS Studios President David Stapf.
Continuing the streamlining trend of Skydance putting the combined Paramount and WBD TV studios under Cheeks, film studios under Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg and streamers (HBO Max and Paramount+) under Bloys, the company would be doing the same for the large array of cable networks it will own under Dungey, who also will continue to run the Warner Bros TV Group, sources said.
She would be adding oversight of the Paramount cable nets, which currently report to Cheeks, including the “core four” — MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET — as well as VH1, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop TV and Logo TV.
That would be in addition to her current cable portfolio as head of US Networks, which features WBD’s linear TV brands including Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TLC, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, HLN, OWN, TBS, TNT, Travel Channel, truTV and Turner Classic Movies. Channing would be reporting to Cheeks on both the studio and cable network side.
Reps for Paramount and Warner Bros TV declined comment.
With the move, Cheeks, whose domain is expanding to include two more TV studios and WBD’s cable portfolio as he takes charge of the combined company’s TV Studios and linear networks, including CBS and cable, is delegating day-to-day oversight of the cable brands to Dungey, a highly respected veteran TV executive who had begun executing her strategy for the WBD cable nets since adding the responsibility to her original job of running the Warner Bros television studio almost two years ago.
The new studio structure reaffirms Paramount CEO David Ellison’s faith in former Skydance TV President Thunell, who is put on the same level with two of the most decorated TV executives in the business who have decades of experience and oversee large portfolios in Dungey and Stapf. Under the setup, Dungey and Thunell, whose units both focus on development and production for streaming, are expected to work closely together.
Skydance is poised to unveil its official executive structure early next week, tied to Paramount’s acquisition of WBD closing Tuesday.
Dungey added oversight of Warner Bros Discovery’s basic cable networks at the end of 2024. She has led the unit through a period of uncertainty as WBD announced a plan to spin off its linear networks before Paramount emerged as a buyer for the entire portfolio. With her at the US Networks helm, Shark Week 2026 garnered its biggest ratings growth in more than a decade, Puppy Bowl delivered its largest audience in eight years, Food Network achieved its first quarter of ratings growth in five years (in Q1 2026), and HGTV posted its strongest year-over-year gains this year in nearly two decades.
Among the programming synergies between the cable networks and WBTV under Dungey are a Bachelor Mansion crossover with HGTV and The Pitt season 1 getting a run on TNT.
The large size of Paramount’s and WBD’s combined cable network footprint was a main antitrust concern in the lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general, with its settlement stipulating that “Paramount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately.”
Failure to comply would require Skydance to divest several Paramount brands including BET (BET, BET Gospel, BET Her, BET Hip-Hop, BET Jams,and BET Soul), VH1, Comedy Central, Smithsonian, Destination America and Science.
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More to come...
What’s Going on With Skydance’s Animation Studios? | Exclusive
Can Skydance Animation, Paramount Animation and Warner Bros. Pictures Animation co-exist at the same company?
Somewhat lost in the palace intrigue of Skydance’s acquisition and integration of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery is the newly created constellation of three disparate animation studios now housed under a single overstuffed roof. It raises the natural question: if two’s company, is three a crowd?
Following the blockbuster merger, Skydance owns Paramount Animation, home to the “Paw Patrol” and “SpongeBob SquarePants” franchises (along with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”); Skydance Animation, which has thus far only produced films in partnership with Apple TV (“Luck”) and Netflix (“Spellbound,” “Swapped” and the upcoming “Ray Gunn”) and Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, a newly formed division that is looking to mine both the company’s deep bench of characters and IP and develop promising new confections (its first film, “The Cat in the Hat,” is part of a larger arrangement with Dr. Seuss Enterprises and arrives on Friday).
Skydance will tell you – as it told us – that the plan, at least for now, is to have each animation studio remain open and operate independently. Like the rest of the labyrinthian deal, Skydance is still finessing the particulars, but the hope is that each studio will serve different needs to satisfy the appetite of an ever-voracious audience for animation.
Solving this piece of the Skydance puzzle is so critical because of the upside of animated films, particularly with established franchises as close to a surefire hit as you’ll get, as seen with “Toy Story 5” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” both grossing more than $1 billion this year. And given Skydance’s mandate to produce a ton of films and the $80 billion of debt it’s wrestling with, it needs all the blockbusters it can get.
But there’s reason to be skeptical that Skydance will be able to juggle all three studios, especially if history is any indication.
When Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019, the acquisition left an animation studio, Blue Sky, out in the cold, despite having a rich track record of box office hits that continue to generate millions of dollars for the company. Blue Sky Studios was, at the time, responsible for one of the biggest animated franchises of all time – “Ice Age,” which began in 2002 and by 2016, shortly before the merger process started, had grossed more than $3.2 billion, across five films. Blue Sky had also produced the similarly popular “Rio” films, along with more modest hits like “Epic” and “The Peanuts Movie.”
By February 2021, Disney announced that it was shuttering Blue Sky Studios.
The fact that Disney, the king of animation, felt that having two animation studios was enough makes you wonder if Skydance’s bold ambition to house three distinct animation studios, with unique corporate cultures and specialized workflows, without the studios clashing into each other, is viable.
There’s also Universal, which also owns and operates a pair of animation studios – Illumination, home to the “Despicable Me” and “Sing” franchises, which still operates as an independent contractor under an “exclusive financing and distribution partnership” with Universal; and DreamWorks Animation, with its “Shrek” series and recent hits like “The Wild Robot,” which Universal acquired in 2016. (Previously, DreamWorks was an independent entity that made distribution deals with various studios, including Paramount.)
Just like Disney, Universal oversees two studios, with an emphasis on maintaining what makes each studio special, including their distinct corporate cultures and production pipelines. While an unspoken rule, it seems like two feature animation units are about as much as any studio can handle.
So how will Skydance make three work? To understand how this arrangement could work out (if, indeed, it will work at all), requires looking at the history of each specific animation studio, the status of their respective slates and what they potentially bring to the table.
Things are about to get very animated.
Paramount Animation
Paramount Animation, led by Jennifer Dodge, a veteran of “Paw Patrol” parent company Spin Master, started in 2011 after the surprise success of “Rango,” the Gore Verbinski-directed, Industrial Light & Magic-animated western that would eventually win the Best Animated Feature Academy Award. Founded by Brad Grey, they were bolstered by the upcoming release of Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” and spurred by the dissolution of a distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation.
There had been animated movies released by Paramount before, usually offshoots of its popular television series (like the “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie,” “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” or “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America”) or oddities like 1992’s “Bebe’s Kids” or the bizarre animation/live-action hybrid “Cool World” (also 1992). What Grey wanted was an in-house team that regularly developed projects, both originals and projects based on assets in the Paramount library, that could compete with other top-tier animation studios.
And, to be honest, the output was shaky.
While splashy development deals were announced with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot and ambitious live-action/animation projects added to the slate (only one, 2016’s “Monster Trucks,” made it into theaters), the output was erratic. Spanish studio Ilion Animation Studios would work on a number of projects as a vendor studio but later be purchased by Skydance in 2020 to serve as the main production hub for Skydance Animation. (Do you see how tangled this web is?)
The slate was seemingly snakebit – the beautiful “The Little Prince” got hung up at the last minute and was eventually released by Netflix; “Wonder Park” was one of the more doomed animated projects in recent memory, with a notoriously difficult production (the final film doesn’t even have a credited director); and a succession of executives were installed, attempted to right the ship and then dismissed. It was, for a long while, seemingly rudderless.
Before the Skydance acquisition, Paramount Animation was run by Ramsey Naito, a well-liked figure in animation circles who had worked as a producer at Blue Sky and Nickelodeon Films. Her notable projects include 2023’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” which adopted a scribbly, high school notebook aesthetic; and 2024’s “Transformers One,” directed by Josh Cooley and featuring sublime animation from Industrial Light & Magic. Both offered a look at where the division could be headed, stylistically and thematically.
But “Transformers One” underperformed, making just $129 million worldwide on a budget reportedly in the $150 million range, a disappointing number both because of the strength of the brand and because the movie was really, really good. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” probably also should have done better, making $182 million on a budget of around $70 million. It had all the hallmarks of a sensation but wasn’t even nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar (ditto for “Transformers”).
In the case of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” the studio had already committed to an animated spinoff series for Paramount+, a short film that narrowly missed its own Oscar nomination and a sequel, due out next year, undoubtedly bolstered by strong consumer products numbers. While not the blockbuster Paramount hoped it would be, “Mutant Mayhem” still engendered enough goodwill to turn it into a franchise.
With Dodge, who took over in January, Paramount Animation has a practical leader, one steeped in the world of consumer products and canny cross promotion. More than one person we spoke to marveled at her ability to put together an animated “Survivor” movie, with talking animals (one of four types of movies the unit is keenly interested in, along with musicals, broadly appealing comedies and spookier films), working with CBS, Castaway Productions and Survivor Productions LLC to get the deal done. One person with knowledge of the deal described the feat as “unprecedented.”
And the movies that Paramount Animation has announced as being in development do offer a nice mix of tones and styles – there’s “Diya,” a Bollywood musical produced by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein; “Freddy the 13th” from “Predator: Badlands” director Dan Trachtenberg, already slated for Halloween 2028; and a fourth “Paw Patrol” movie, due in 2029. There’s also an unhinged Christmas movie from Robert Rodriguez and his Troublemaker Studios that the studio seems very excited about.
But as with every new regime, a number of projects have been removed from development, including Cooley’s “I Eat Poop,” which was produced by Ryan Reynold’s Maximum Effort and based on the popular children’s book written and illustrated by Mark Pett. (Hey, a movie about a dung beetle was always going to be a tough sell.)
We’re also hearing conflicting reports about the uncertain future of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” animated saga. Should the sequel be a runaway success, there will certainly be more in that world. But the new Paramount leadership has also made a point of putting Neal Moritz, the producer behind the lucrative, live-action “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchise, in charge of a new live-action “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, which could edge out the animated features. The well-liked Paramount+ spinoff series was quietly canceled, also clearing the way for its potential removal from the sacred timeline.
Insiders stress that there isn’t a single house style to Paramount Animation films and that the slate will continue to mix new projects with those based on preexisting IP. A new trailer for “The Angry Birds Movie 3,” which Paramount will be distributing this Christmas (Sony released the first two films), perhaps best exemplifies this approach – one of the characters (voiced by Josh Gad) is seen racing alongside Sonic the Hedgehog (voiced by, presumably, Ben Schwartz), one of Skydance’s crown jewels.
Skydance Animation was formed in 2017 and was initially meant to supply Paramount Pictures with animated features, extending the partnership between the two studios which had already included a number of live-action films. (Yes, it really is this tangled.)
Bill Damaschke, former CCO of DreamWorks Animation, was hired to run the company, with the first two movies – “Split” (eventually known as “Spellbound”) and “Luck” set to be distributed theatrically by Paramount. In 2019, Damaschke was replaced by John Lasseter, the former Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios bigwig, who had been fired after a probationary period following allegations of inappropriate misconduct. (Skydance did an internal review of Lasseter’s conduct before hiring him.)
And the changes kept coming.
By 2020, the deal with Paramount had been replaced by an arrangement with Apple; Skydance Animation was set to deliver animated features and animated series for the company’s new streaming service. “Luck,” with Peggy Holmes replacing original director Alessandro Carloni (who just directed “The Cat in the Hat” for Warner Bros. Pictures Animation), arrived on Apple TV on 2022. The same year, an impressive Skydance Animation lineup had been revealed, with new, original projects from “The Incredibles” director Brad Bird (“Ray Gunn”), “Tangled” filmmaker Nathan Greno (“Swapped,” formerly “Pookoo”) and Rich Moore, who had made “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Zootopia” for Disney (an untitled Jack and the Beanstalk project).
A year later, Skydance Animation had exited the Apple deal and entered into a deal with Netflix, which richly rewarded Skydance. Netflix hadn’t adequately built up its animation pipeline and desperately needed content. The movies were attractive and so was Lasseter’s expertise and track record as a hitmaker. “Spellbound,” a Disney-style musical fairy tale complete with Alan Menken score, arrived on 2024 and didn’t make much noise. But “Swapped,” a fantasy starring Michael B. Jordan about two animals that switch bodies, was released earlier this and became a gigantic hit, quickly becoming one of Netflix’s most-watched original movies.
And “Ray Gunn,” one of the best animated films of the past decade that’s racking up positive reviews on the festival circuit, is poised to hit Netflix at Christmas, after a bumpy ride with the filmmaking team pleading for a wide theatrical release and neither Netflix or Skydance stepping up.
But earlier this year, Skydance Animation and Netflix prematurely ended their deal. Netflix cited the fact that its own animation studio was finally up to speed (the first end-to-end Netflix Animation Studios feature, “Steps,” arrives later this month) and that its partnership with Sony Pictures Animation, which produced the zeitgeist-capturing “KPop Demon Hunters” and the Oscar-nominated “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” was probably enough.
The last Skydance Animation feature that Netflix will release is Moore’s untitled Jack and the Beanstalk movie, coming next year. Lasseter will return to the director’s chair for “Cosmic Motors,” which everyone we spoke to has described exactly the same way: “’Cars’ in space.” It will be the first Skydance Animation movie to be released theatrically, by Paramount, next year.
There are, perhaps, more questions regarding Skydance Animation and where it fits into the larger ecosystem than any other animation studio under the current corporate umbrella. For one, Lasseter’s appointment at the studio, in partnership with president Holly Edwards, was contingent on the Netflix deal. Now that the Netflix deal is done, he’s free to – hypothetically – run Paramount Animation or run the entire animation apparatus. He’s also free to be replaced. His appointment was part of what made the deal so attractive to Netflix. Now that deal is over.
With Lasseter set to reemerge next year to promote his first directorial effort since 2011’s “Cars 2,” could he make a play for the crown at the same time? While at Disney, Lasseter, who turns 70 early next year, oversaw Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios and even served as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, the unit behind the company’s theme parks and cruise ships.
Skydance insiders insist that Skydance Animation (and, by extension, Lasseter) will remain siloed and that Lasseter will merely be at the top of Skydance Animation.
It’s also unclear what is happening with the movies that were put into development to satisfy the Netflix quota. We were told that Greno’s next feature was quickly put into development at Skydance Animation following the success of “Swapped,” partially as a way of fulfilling the Netflix order. But now that Netflix doesn’t need those movies, what will become of that movie and a host of others that were being readied for the streaming giant?
One thing we can exclusively reveal is that Don Hall, the legendary Disney filmmaker behind 2011’s “Winnie the Pooh,” 2014’s “Big Hero 6” and 2021’s “Raya and the Last Dragon” (he was also a co-director, along with frequent partner Chris Williams, on 2016’s “Moana”), has left Skydance Animation, after a splashy announcement in 2024. Hall has returned to Walt Disney Animation Studios, according to several people with knowledge of the situation, and already started work on an unannounced project for his old studio.
Who says you can’t go home again?
Warner Bros. Pictures Animation
Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, which replaced Warner Animation Group (WAG), started in 2023. It is run by President and CCO Damaschke, a longtime veteran of DreamWorks Animation, but was birthed under the creative guidance of former film co-chiefs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca. This studio marked a new era, one that would be based on established IP and bold original swings. An informal cocktail party held earlier this year by Warner Bros. on the WBPS campus, in an area affectionately known as Termite Terrace (named after the ratty building where the original “Looney Tunes” shorts were produced), had some of the biggest names in animation mingling with a handful of invited journalists. The mood was electric, the possibilities seemingly endless.
There’s one big thing working in Warner Bros.’ favor should a “Hunger Games”-style culling come for one Skydance animation studio: It boasts a fabled history in animation, dating back to the “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” shorts of the 1930s, and its deep roster of characters are instantly identifiable to moviegoers, including those from the DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera libraries. Many we talked to positioned Warner Bros. Pictures Animation as the crown jewel of the three Skydance-owned studios and Damaschke as a potential creative lead for all three studios.
“They should just give the whole thing to Bill,” said one animation industry insider.
In June, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation unveiled its upcoming slate at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France.
This week sees the release of “The Cat in the Hat,” an update of the Dr. Seuss classic and part of a larger collaboration between WBPA and Dr. Seuss Enterprises that also includes “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!,” due out on March 17, 2028, with animation from Industrial Light & Magic. It will mark the first time Jon M. Chu has directed animation. Abrams and Bad Robot will produce. We have been told that, should “The Cat in the Hat” be a hit, a sequel would be the third film in the pact.
Next year sees a pair of originals released: Rock musical “Bad Fairies,” a co-production with British studio Locksmith, directed by “Centaurworld” creator Megan Nicole Dong and featuring punk rock fairies voiced by Cynthia Erivo, Ncuti Gatwa and Kylie Minogue (of course), arrives on May 21, 2027. Isabella Summers, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss are writing the songs and the animation is being provided by DNEG, who also did “The Cat in the Hat.”
Next November also sees the release of “Margie Claus,” directed by animation legend Kirk DeMicco and produced by recent “KPop Demon Hunters” Oscar winner Michelle Wong, with Melissa McCarthy as the title character and animation from DNEG.
Beyond “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!,” 2028 will see the arrival of the recently announced “Hello Kitty” movie, directed by Dave Derrick and John Aoshima, and produced by Naito (yes, really), based on the beloved Sanrio character originally created in 1974.
2028 should also see the release of “Dynamic Duo,” a DC Studios project produced by Swaybox, a New Orleans-based studio that combines puppetry with cutting edge computer animation, which Warner Bros. partially owns. (The first time we saw footage from the movie, it evoked a similar feeling as seeing imagery from “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”) The film, set in the Batman universe and produced by “The Batman” director Matt Reeves, is currently scheduled for Sept. 22, 2028.
A little over a month later comes “The Lunar Chronicles,” based on Melissa Meyer’s bestselling book series that imagines classic fairy tale characters in a crazy sci-fi setting, which is meant to hit theaters on Nov. 2, 2028. Directed by story artist Noëlle Raffaele and featuring animation from Industrial Light & Magic, it’s meant to be the beginning of a new franchise for Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.
Because every studio needs a “Frozen.” Or a “KPop Demon Hunters” for that matter.
Beyond the initial slate, there are plenty of exciting projects that mine the Warner Bros. vault, including a “Tom and Jerry” feature, a new “Flintstones” project (the first in computer animation), a new “Looney Tunes” feature in the vein of “Ocean’s 11,” and a “Speedy Gonzales” movie from “Book of Life” director Jorge R. Gutiérrez. There’s also a photo-real adaptation of series “Meerkat Manor” in the works from “Jurassic World” director Colin Trevorrow called “Meerkats” that is described as an “animated family adventure for the next generation.” At Annecy, WB also teased an animated feature based on the classic Saturday morning cartoon series “Thundercats,” although nothing was revealed beyond a preliminary logo.
Maybe the most important project to come out of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation is the short film that’s attached to “The Cat in the Hat.” “Daffy Season,” the first theatrical Looney Tunes short in over a decade, is meant to herald the arrival of a bold new animation studio, one that acknowledges its past while blazing a new path forward. It’s also meant to shake off the cobwebs of “Coyote vs. Acme,” a movie produced in partnership with WAG that former Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav tried to s–t-can, only for it to be acquired and released earlier this year, making more money at the box office than most Warner Bros. titles in 2026.
In terms of achieving these lofty goals, “Daffy Season” works. The short is terrific, with animation from DNEG and some of the last Looney Tunes voice work by Eric Bauza, the talented voice actor who passed away in October at the age of 46. It’s a testament to everything that came before and a promise of what’s to come.
We just hope every animation within the Skydance portfolio can play well together. We’d hate for them to fight like Daffy and Bugs, after all.
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Originally published: October 03, 2026.
