Has David Zaslav saved Warner Bros., or is he about to bury it? That’s the crux of an angry debate in Hollywood as Paramount Skydance moves closer to acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max, CNN, TNT, HGTV and more. The $110 billion deal, reached in February, has sparked organized opposition efforts from Hollywood’s creative community and investigations by key regulators in California and other states.
Fanning the flames of outrage is that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Zaslav will walk away after four years at the helm with a payout of at least $550 million from the Paramount deal, in addition to $116 million in vested stock.
To many, these windfalls seem utterly unjust in light of the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs that will undoubtedly be cut once Paramount begins the integration of Warner Bros., HBO and WBD’s cable channels with its existing movie and TV operations. Zaslav has become a symbol of a changing Hollywood, where jobs and budgets are being sacrificed to M&A and consolidation that enriches a handful of insiders.
Max-O-Matic for Variety
Warner Bros. and HBO employees have endured three megamergers in eight years: the Time Warner sale to AT&T in 2018, followed by the union of AT&T’s WarnerMedia with Discovery Inc. in 2022 and now the pending handover to Paramount Skydance, which is expected to close by year’s end. In the 2018 and 2022 transactions, the deals were financed by heavy amounts of debt that inevitably wound up putting pressure on the company. The Paramount Skydance deal rolls that debt over yet again. Paramount Skydance will emerge from the WBD deal, should it secure federal and shareholder approval, with about $79 billion in money owed.
