Some of Hollywood’s most prolific and established producers weighed in on the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger Saturday night at as they walked the red carpet at the Producers Guild Awards in Los Angeles.
“It’s sad. A lot of people will lose their jobs unfortunately, which is no good, but [Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO] David Ellison love movies. He’ll make a lot of movies, which is a good thing,” said industry veteran Jerry Bruckheimer, who was nominated at the PGAs for producing Apple’s “F1: The Movie.”
Does Bruckheimer think it’s possible for Ellison to live up to his promise of releasing 30 theatrical films a year? “He could certainly try,” he said. “At least he’s trying rather than saying, ‘I’ll make five movies.’”
Warner Bros. Discovery agreed to be acquired by Paramount Skydance in a $110 billion deal reached on Friday after Netflix decided to back out of its bid for the studio.
Jason Blum, this year’s recipient of the Milestone Award at the PGAs, said he believes “it’s an overblown thing about the consolidation.”
He pointed to a decade ago when Netflix, Amazon and Apple were just starting to rev up their activities in film and TV.
“So there are three major new buyers so I think it’s not surprised that studios would consolidate,” Blum said. “But I believe David really really believes in the theatrical business and loves movies and I think he’s going to take very good care of Warner Bros.”
Blum acknowledged the “real fear” of people losing their jobs due to the merger. “There’s nothing worse than that,” he said. “That’s an absolute real fear and you know, the only thing that can stop that is the government, but that is a real fear. That is always a downside of consolidation.”
This year’s Norman Lear Achievement Award honoree Mara Brock Akil said there are still too many unknowns for her to form a definitive opinion. “I think that’s the scary part of it,” she said. “What do you do when you’re scared – crawl in the corner or take action? I think we need to decide who we want to be as a community, as artists and have a conversation with clearly what’s going to be the most powerful studio in the world…We need to start that now.”
Charles Roven isn’t exactly feeling bad for Netflix losing to Paramount. “Paramount – the Ellisons –were incredibly aggressive. Ted [Sarandos] made a nice deal for himself in picking up $2.8 billion for the breakup fee so no one’s crying for him,” he said. “We’ll see what happens because there’s still a lot of steps to do. It’s going to be interesting to see how all the different states and the Department of Justice look at the transaction because…Paramount and Skydance have things that Warner Bros. have – CNN and CBS, HBO Max and Paramount+.”
Roven, whose credits include about a dozen Batman and Superman movies at Warner Bros., believes the combined studios could release 30 movies a year – if the studios remain somewhat independent of each other. “If [Ellison] keeps Warners separate from Paramount, it’s conceivably possible,” he said. “I just think it’s going to be challenging depending on how dominate of a presence a guy at the top – and David is on the top – is going to be because he’s not going to have time to actually get granular on 30 movies. I don’t think. Maybe his is that brilliant. I don’t know.”
Funny or Die CEO Mike Farah said he was hesitant to offer an opinion because he wants “to give people time to figure it out.”
But then he said, “Generally speaking, many people – and I agree with them – believe this isn’t great for Hollywood because it is a form of consolidation and that will have impact. There is much disruption and change right now that I just want to take a beat, let’s see if any of it goes through – it probably will – and then let’s just take people at their words,” Farah said.
“Hamnet” producer Pippa Harris worries that she’ll have one less studio to pitch her wares. “Hopefully, whoever ends up running Warner Bros. they will keep it as an active successful studio and making the kind of movies they’ve been successful with this year,” she said.
(Pictured: Jason Blum, Mara Brock Akil and Jerry Bruckheimer)
variety.com
#Producers #Talk #ParamountWarner #Bros #Deal
