I thought I read somewhere paramount is in survival mode, avoiding risky projects and focusing on reliable projects. This is surprising indeed.

Amazon took MGM, maybe netflix can take over paramount after it takes over warner bros?

I know people have strong opinions on this, but both from studios like warner and netflix, their quality has been subpar, i don't think this will change much in terms of risk taking. There used to be lots of more flops but lots of really good blockbusters as well. Now there are a lot less of both, it is profitable but enshittified.

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WorldMaker 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Paramount sold themselves to Skydance who now get referred to as Paramount because Paramount is the older, stabler brand. That sale is generally considered to have pulled Paramount out of survival mode, though it will probably be at least a few more quarters before it the results are seen.

(Arguably, Skydance's ideas for Paramount are too similar to the weird Paramount and CBS divorce era, that I find it hard to believe Skydance is less wrong of a steward for Paramount than Paramount was before the consolidation. But a lot of that opinion comes from bias as a Star Trek fan and Skydance's approach seems to return to the semi-broken idea that Star Trek seems to be better as a film franchise than a TV franchise.)

Skydance owning both Paramount and Warner Brothers might be very concerning in terms of IP consolidation alone.

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bsimpson 16 hours ago | parent [-]

Skydance is also known as the then-obscure company that picked up Pixar head John Lasseter when his reputation for being overly affectionate got him pushed out of Disney.

It's one of the Ellison family's forays into media. David's sister/Larry's daughter Megan has Annapurna. Annapurna produced the Spike Jonze's AI romance "Her" and many of the the most prominent indie games of the last decade (Outer Wilds, Cocoon, Stray, Kentucky Route Zero, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Journey, Donut Country…).

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WorldMaker 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Right. Also the weird part of the Skydance Lasseter drama is not just that is happened once, there, but that it happened at nearly the same time but worse at Annapurna. Annapurna games division that had done so well last decade got purged by rehiring someone to oversee it who had been fired the first time for the "overly affectionate" types of problems just before Annapurna's "Golden Age" and was hired as much to better align the games division with making movie knockoffs rather than producing indie darlings (which was a "distraction" for a company trying so hard to be a movie company). (You can almost excuse "hired someone Disney fired for this reason", but how do you excuse "we already fired once for this reason"?)

The Ellison family's willingness to be tied to serial harassers, and in the case of Annapurna in direct expense of being a beloved media producer, makes you wonder what worse skeletons that family has in its closet if this is already just the open awful stuff they want us to know about their close associates.

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VanTheBrand 14 hours ago | parent [-]

David Ellison was an intern at Pixar in college and has a personal relationship with Lasseter. Annapurna games was under his sister and has no management connection to Skydance.

I guess if there is any common denominator it’s a familial default to loyalty vs fear of public perception? Not the worst trait in the world despite leading to this outcome.

Also to be fair Lasseter’s “serial harassment” (while real and I’m not trying to discount) consisted of his insistence that everyone hug him when greeting him. So while you can make the argument his firing had merit, his ”issue” is pretty easy to prevent at a new firm: No hugs policy

	▲	KerrAvon 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Do a quick web search for "lasseter harassment" before posting stuff about it, maybe? Topmost link on DDG starts with: "John Lasseter was accused by multiple former employees and reports of a pattern of unwanted sexualized behavior at Pixar and Disney Animation, including persistent unwelcome touching, kisses, and leering that made staff uncomfortable"

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JumpCrisscross 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> thought I read somewhere paramount is in survival mode

Paramount's multi-year sale process deserves an HBO miniseries. But at this point, it's a de facto LBO platform for the Ellisons.

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sippeangelo 18 hours ago | parent [-]

But who's gonna produce that once Paramount owns HBO?

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WorldMaker 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Apple TV will buy it from Sony.

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lotsofpulp 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US has freedom of speech, so anyone who wants to spend money producing a tv show or movie about Paramount’s sale, regardless of HBO’s ownership.

I think it would be quite boring, though

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JumpCrisscross 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> who's gonna produce that once Paramount owns HBO?

Netflix.

If they win, they own HBO. If they lose, they have a beef with Ellison.

(Speaking out of my ass here. But I think there is broad underappreciation of how intensely a lot of Hollywood creatives do not want to work for a rightwinger. I imagine Netflix, Disney and others will have a bit of a bonanza over the coming years of picking up disaffecteds from Paramount et al, even assuming the latter don't wind up in bankruptcy.)

	▲	alephnerd 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Don't sleep on the A24 or NEON model. I think we'll see a boom in independent film production and distribution companies over the next few years, especially with the inevitable dry powder from either deal.