Paramount-WBD Will Now Be Called Skydance, David Ellison Reveals

After the expected close of their merger, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will together be known as Skydance.

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.

What once was the peak, is now just the beginning.

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… pic.twitter.com/uInLRY3IrE

— David Ellison (@davidellison) October 2, 2026

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From Deadline:

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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More to come...

Original source: Deadline; H/T: Bluesky;