Skydance Ousts Warner Bros. Film Chiefs, Vows 30 Theatrical Releases a Year

The Burbank offices of Warner Bros. Pictures fell quiet this week as co-heads Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca packed their desks. The two executives, who ran the studio's film division for four years, were dismissed last week as Skydance chief David Ellison closed his acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Their tenure delivered both hits and misses. Warner Bros. released "A Minecraft Movie" and the costly flop "The Bride!" under their leadership. Tom Cruise's eco-disaster project "Digger," released last year, will represent a loss of hundreds of millions when all is said and done.

A wave of merger-induced grief compounded the silence, multiple sources said. Abdy may have boxed up the remnants of a workplace tradition diluted by acquisitions over three decades.

What changes first?

Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, who served a year as heads of Paramount Pictures, will become co-chairs of the combined motion picture group. Their Paramount replacement will report into them rather than the CEO's office, as was the case under David Zaslav's Discovery and John Stankey's AT&T.

Goldberg's résumé includes Village Roadshow, where she worked on "The Matrix" and the "Ocean's Eleven" series. Greenstein came from Sony Pictures. They have greenlit 20 films since taking Paramount's helm and signed deals with the Duffer Brothers, Will Smith, James Mangold, Jon M. Chu and Issa Rae. They also negotiated a distribution pact with Legendary Entertainment.

Richard Weitz, co-chairman of WME Group, framed the move in theatrical terms. "On the film side, the scale of this combination, particularly its commitment to theatrical, puts Dana and Josh at the center of the movie business," Weitz said.

Ellison committed in writing to release 30 theatrical films per year across both labels as part of his merger agreement. Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, who served as a top Warner Bros. film executive from 1989 to 2002 before moving to Paramount, called that pledge meaningful.

"Looking at the two companies and their slates, I don't think they have done 30 movies between the two in a very long time," Di Bonaventura said. "That is a net plus for our business, because that means more movies are getting made and more capital is being expended in creating them."

What is the financial backdrop?

Skydance carries some $80 billion in debt on its balance sheet. The era of carte blanche greenlighting is over, according to multiple high-level sources.

De Luca and Abdy courted premium filmmakers through what one source called "irresponsible" spending. "It's easy to say yes when you don't care what the price is," the source added. De Luca was a groomsman in Paul Thomas Anderson's wedding; Abdy was considered a whisperer to filmmakers including Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Industry figures draw sharp contrasts with Ellison. "Unlike 'carpetbaggers' Zaslav and Stankey, as another top industry player calls them, Ellison and his team consider themselves obsessed lovers of film." But the pomp and "platinum" aura of Warner Bros. may be sacrificed quickly.

What will disappear?

The lingering magic of Warner Bros., built by Bob Daly and Terry Semel — who ran the company as co-CEOs for almost two decades starting in 1980 — faces a reckoning. They prioritized elevated popcorn hits from substantial filmmakers. Clint Eastwood and Christopher Nolan kept bungalows on the lot without holding overall deals. "They just wanted to be there," one former employee said.

A text chain of former Warner employees called the "Gate 4 Club" — referring to the entrance many used to access the lot — remains active across the industry. Members still discuss the days when Daly and Semel parked a row of brand-new Range Rovers as gifts to the cast and filmmakers of "Lethal Weapon" after a sequel hit big.

Tom Rothman, Sony Pictures chief and Greenstein's former boss, praised his old colleague. "I worked with Josh for more than a decade, and I have a great deal of respect for him," Rothman said. "What you need in that job is a combination of IQ and EQ. It's managing capital allocation, but in a much more important sense, it's managing artistic temperaments. He's extremely capable in both regards."

It is doubtful any shiny SUVs will be wrapped in ribbons at Warner Bros. anytime soon. Ellison, after all, prefers the sky.