Should We Start Panicking About Hollywood History Now?
Paramount and WB have finally merged. Collect your classic content while you can.
This piece is exclusive to my Gold tier Gold Star Crew.
🌟Supporters like: Kathia, Alcmatta, Kevin Turner, Cassidy Dimon, Barbara Doss, Holly Alarcon, Teresa Castner, Scott Phillips, Staskelv, and S. David Miller💫
Paid subscribers are the backbone of The Film Maven who support independent journalism, as well as female- and disabled-created content. Paid Film Mavens get access to shout-outs, exclusive articles and series, career mentoring, Zoom mixers, and access to The Film Maven Discord.
Consider becoming a paid subscriber and joining the community that invests in independent journalism free of AI and influencer opinions!
So as of Tuesday morning Warner Bros. and Paramount have officially merged into an entity to collectively be known as Skydance. For the last several months I've had people reach out to me to ask a variety of questions, particularly around what this means for the Warner Bros. lot and Turner Classic Movies. I don't have any hard or definitive answers. In trying to report on this before – specifically TCM's future and the fate of the WB production archives – for a far bigger outlet I was immediately told all PR requests would be going through Paramount who were, no surprise, radio silent. Wagons have definitely started circling for the last few months as people start getting talking points for the future of these two companies, which are now one.
But, to try to allay some fears, or so we can all cry together, I wanted to lay out some theories (strictly theories) on what I could foresee coming from this merger over the next few years. I want to keep the focus strictly on what this merger means for the Warner Bros. lot and their physical production archives in North Hollywood, as well as what could happen to TCM. Again, these are notions based purely on my time in the industry and if there are people in the know who read this and want to give information to me, my contact page lists how to get in touch.
So, let's dive in.
