Skydance Corporation

Open full sized image

Paramount Skydance was formed through the 2025 merger of Skydance Media and Paramount Global and renamed Skydance Corporation in 2026.

© Michael Yanow—NurPhoto/Getty Images

Skydance Corporation is a U.S.-based media and entertainment company that owns film and television studios, streaming services, cable networks, and news organizations. Its holdings include Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., HBO, CBS, CNN, Paramount+, and HBO Max. Headquartered in New York City, the company is led by founder David Ellison, who serves as chief executive officer and chair, with Ynon Kreiz as co-CEO and Andrew Brandon-Gordon as president. Skydance trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SKYD.

Skydance Productions traces its roots to 2006, when Ellison—an avid pilot whose aviation background inspired the company’s name—helped finance Flyboys, a World War I aviation drama. At that stage, Skydance functioned more as a financing vehicle for a single film than a full-fledged studio.

The company formally launched in 2010 after securing a $350 million financing deal that included major support from Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, then chief executive of Oracle (ORCL). That same year, Skydance signed a five-year cofinancing agreement with Paramount Pictures, giving the new studio access to major film projects.

That December it released its first feature film, True Grit, a remake of the 1969 western. Coproduced with Paramount and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, known for No Country for Old Men and Fargo, the film became a critical and commercial success, grossing more than $250 million worldwide on a budget of less than $40 million. It received 10 Academy Award nominations and remains one of the highest-grossing westerns of the 21st century. True Grit marked a breakout moment for Skydance, establishing its reputation as a major new player in the Hollywood film industry.

Follow-up hits include Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011); Star Trek Into Darkness (2013); and World War Z (2013).

Following its initial run of box office hits, Skydance expanded into television production and struck deals with major streaming services. Skydance Television was launched in 2013, and by the following year, it had secured a production agreement with Amazon Studios, the film and television production arm of Amazon.com (AMZN). One of its first major releases was Jack Ryan, an action-thriller series based on the iconic CIA analyst from Tom Clancy’s novels. The show premiered on Amazon Prime Video in 2018 and became one of the streaming service’s most-watched original series.

In 2016, the company launched Skydance Interactive, a division focused on immersive gaming. Its debut title, Archangel (2017), was a virtual reality action game in which players piloted giant war robots to battle a tyrannical regime.

Skydance launched Skydance Animation in 2017, hiring longtime DreamWorks Animation executive Bill Damaschke to lead the effort. He oversaw the division’s early development and its initial partnership with Ilion Animation Studios, a Madrid-based production house known for Planet 51, a comedy about an American astronaut who lands on a distant world and is mistaken for an alien invader. Skydance later acquired Ilion outright and renamed it Skydance Animation Madrid, bringing full-scale animation capabilities in-house.

Damaschke departed at the end of 2018, and in January 2019, Skydance named John Lasseter, former chief creative officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, as head of Skydance Animation. Lasseter’s hiring drew criticism because of his prior departure from Disney (DIS) following allegations of inappropriate workplace behavior. Despite the controversy, he helped shepherd the development of Skydance’s first animated feature, Luck, released in 2022 through a partnership with Apple TV+, the streaming service from Apple Inc. (AAPL).

In the early 2020s, Skydance released some of its most commercially successful films while expanding its partnerships with major streaming services. Top Gun: Maverick (2022), coproduced with Paramount Pictures, became the highest-grossing film of the year and marked a career comeback for Tom Cruise. The company followed with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023), the seventh installment in the long-running action film franchise that also starred Cruise.

Skydance Animation continued development under John Lasseter, releasing Spellbound, a musical fantasy set in a magical kingdom, in November 2024. The film marked Skydance’s second animated feature and its first original production following Luck, helping to establish the studio’s long-term ambitions in animation.

Open full sized image

Skydance CEO David Ellison led the 2025 merger with Paramount Global and the 2026 acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

© Shannon Finney—WireImage/Getty Images

Skydance Television expanded its slate of original programs with high-budget genre series such as Foundation (Apple TV+) and Reacher (Amazon Prime Video), strengthening its position in episodic storytelling.

As traditional media companies grappled with streaming losses and declining cable revenues, Skydance saw an opportunity to expand by acquiring financially strained studios. In mid-2024, Skydance reached an agreement with Paramount Global to combine the companies in an $8 billion all-stock deal. The merger brought together Skydance’s high-performing divisions in film, television, animation, and gaming with Paramount’s extensive entertainment holdings, including CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, and Paramount Pictures. At the time of the agreement, Paramount was grappling with executive turnover, declining cable revenues, and mounting losses in streaming.

Federal regulators approved the merger in July 2025 after Skydance agreed to phase out Paramount’s diversity and inclusion programs and made additional concessions related to editorial policies. Days before the approval, Paramount settled a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes interview from October 2024 with presidential candidate Kamala Harris, prompting concerns that political pressure had influenced the outcome of one of the year’s most closely watched media deals.

In October 2025, Paramount acquired The Free Press, a digital news and commentary website founded by journalist Bari Weiss, for about $150 million in cash and stock. As part of the transaction, Weiss was appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News, a new role reporting directly to Ellison. The Free Press continued to operate as a separate outlet under Paramount’s ownership.

After Skydance completed its takeover of Paramount in August 2025, the company began restructuring operations and cutting costs. In its fourth-quarter results, Paramount reported a $339 million operating loss that included roughly $500 million in restructuring charges related to the takeover. The company’s traditional television business, including CBS and several cable networks, continued to face revenue declines.

In September 2025, Paramount began pursuing Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, and cable networks such as CNN, HGTV, TNT Sports, and Discovery. Paramount sought to acquire the entire company, arguing that the acquisition would expand its film and streaming operations and strengthen its ability to compete with larger rivals such as Disney, Netflix (NFLX), and Amazon.

In December 2025, Warner agreed to sell its studio and streaming divisions to Netflix in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at about $72 billion, or roughly $82.7 billion including Warner’s debt. Days later, Paramount escalated its pursuit with a hostile all-cash bid for all of Warner, offering $30 a share. The bid was backed by Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, along with private equity firm RedBird Capital and financing commitments from Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and others.

In response, Warner’s board of directors rejected the bid and reaffirmed its support for the Netflix agreement. In January 2026, Netflix revised its proposal to an all-cash structure at the same price for each share.

In February 2026, Paramount raised its offer to $31 a share and added terms intended to increase deal certainty. The revised proposal included a $7 billion regulatory termination fee, payable to Warner if regulators blocked the deal, and an accelerated “ticking fee” of 25 cents a share per quarter if the transaction failed to close by late September 2026. Warner’s board determined that Paramount’s proposal constituted a superior offer under its merger agreement with Netflix.

On February 26, 2026, Netflix declined to raise its bid, saying that a higher price would no longer make the deal financially attractive.

In April 2026, Warner shareholders voted to approve Paramount’s $31-a-share acquisition of the company, valuing the deal at about $81 billion, or roughly $111 billion including debt. The deal drew regulatory scrutiny and political attention, particularly given concerns about placing major news networks such as CBS and CNN under the same corporate parent.

In July 2026, attorneys general from 12 states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the acquisition, arguing that the merger would reduce competition in film distribution, cable television, and streaming. A federal judge subsequently issued a temporary restraining order pausing the transaction.

In September, Paramount reached an agreement with the states to resolve the lawsuit. Under the proposed settlement, Paramount agreed to establish a board of journalists to protect the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News, distribute 30 movies in theaters each year, and spend an additional $1.5 billion on film production over five years. The agreement, which didn’t require Paramount to sell any of its businesses, was subsequently approved by a federal judge.

On October 6, 2026, Paramount completed its $81 billion acquisition of Warner, which became a wholly owned subsidiary. Paramount Skydance Corporation changed its name to Skydance Corporation and moved its headquarters to New York City from Santa Monica, California. The company also transferred its stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange from the Nasdaq and changed its ticker symbol to SKYD from PSKY.