Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy won't be part of the merged company, Puck and Variety reported late Thursday. The pair read the news in the press first. Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison called them Friday to confirm it. Nobody has announced it officially. Paramount's film co-chairs, Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, are in line to run both studios. Also on Friday, Ellison said the combined company will be called Skydance, after his original production company. Paramount and Warner Bros. will be brands under it. The $111 billion merger is set to close Tuesday, Oct. 6, and TheWrap and Deadline report that'll be De Luca and Abdy's last day. Under the pair, Warner Bros. won 11 Oscars this year, including Best Picture for One Battle After Another. But no Warner film has topped $100 million at the domestic box office in 2026.

1. One Company Needs One Film Team, and It Has Debt to Pay

Ellison reportedly told the pair the merged company has a ton of debt, and a Warner insider says one studio can't have two sets of film bosses.

The merged company is carrying a lot of debt. People who spoke to TheWrap say Ellison told De Luca and Abdy the merged companies have "a ton of debt" and need to restructure. The combined company is expected to carry about $80 billion in debt.

A merged studio can't have four film chiefs. "At the end of the day, you can't have four chairmen," a Warner Bros. insider told The Hollywood Reporter. "You can't share marketing and distribution." De Luca and Abdy's contract runs through 2030 and has them reporting to the CEO, with marketing and distribution reporting to them, Deadline reported.

Warner's expensive films have struggled this year. Warner Bros. has made $448.4 million at the domestic box office through Oct. 1. Paramount's total is a bit lower, at $429.8 million, but it has two $100 million hits. Deadline puts the cost of Warner's new Tom Cruise film, Digger, at $125 million to $160 million or more. Deadline projects it'll open to about $10 million this weekend, which would be Cruise's lowest opening in 19 years. The pair's detractors saw them as "overzealous with budgets," The Hollywood Reporter wrote. Even World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy, who praised the pair's nerve, wrote that studios need those swings "to land more often than these did."

Both studio names will stay, Ellison says. He wrote to staff that he never wanted the new name to "diminish, alter or overshadow" Paramount or Warner Bros. On X, he called Skydance "a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling."

2. But Warner Bros. Is Losing the People Who Took Risks

Critics say Ellison is giving up daring, Oscar-winning originals for safer films.

Ellison wouldn't have greenlit this year's Best Picture, a critic says. IndieWire's Anne Thompson wrote that he "would not have greenlit" One Battle After Another. She said the film lost money but added long-term value to the studio's library. She called Greenstein and Goldberg "capable execs" who lack De Luca and Abdy's ties to auteurs.

A bad year shouldn't make Warner Bros. cheaper and safer. The Playlist admitted the pair's strategy "wasn't sustainable at any price." But it warned that if the plan is to make Warner Bros. "cheaper, safer, more franchise-dependent," the studio could end up "culturally irrelevant."

It came down to loyalty, Vulture reports. Vulture senior reporter Chris Lee asked why Ellison didn't keep De Luca and Abdy alongside his co-chairs, and answered: "In a word, loyalty." Goldberg is a longtime Skydance executive, and Greenstein is a close friend of Ellison's. One Paramount insider told Vulture, "This is too big a job for Josh and Dana."

Ellison handled the exit badly, critics say. TheWrap founder and editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman called it "an inelegant way to handle the exit." Deadline reported that "many in town are flabbergasted" the news broke in the press first. People who spoke to TheWrap say Abdy told Ellison, "Good luck to you. I left you 39 movies."

3. Still, the Skydance Name Shows Who Won

Some writers say putting Ellison's own company's name on top tells you who's in charge now.

The name looks like Ellison saying he won. Hollywood Reporter writer-at-large James Hibberd wrote that the choice "looked rather egoic." Ellison put his 20-year-old production company's name above both studios. Hibberd said that's "in the neighborhood of saying, 'Hey, I won.'" He also wrote that Skydance "doesn't carry a fraction of the weight" of the studios it took over, though he admitted that, as corporate names go, "Skydance isn't terrible."

Skydance is the one company Ellison built himself. Los Angeles Times culture critic Mary McNamara noted that he "built rather than bought" Skydance. "Now Paramount is merely a sub-brand," she wrote. Box office analyst Scott Mendelson said the name makes sense for the same reason. "Skydance is Ellison's company," he wrote, while the two studios "were merely acquired with debt and outside investors."

Where This Lands

Ellison reportedly told the pair the merged company has a ton of debt and needs to restructure. He also says both studio names will stay in the spotlight. Ruimy says the pair's big bets didn't land often enough. Thompson says moviegoers may lose out now that the pair is leaving, and The Playlist warns the studio could get cheaper and safer. Hibberd and McNamara say the Skydance name puts Ellison's own company on top. The deal is set to close Tuesday.

Sources