Skydance Puts Revised Offer On The Table For Paramount Amid Merger & CEO Drama

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Country music superstar Tim McGraw is adding to his acting resume with a new drama series at Netflix. Variety has learned that McGraw will star in the untitled series, which is set in the world of competitive bull riding.

Shari Redstone strolled onto the red carpet in New York City tonight for the premiere of Paramount Pictures IF, John Krasinski’ star-studded PG adventure that opens this weekend. She was there to support studio chief Brian Robbins.

Whether playing DI Kate Fleming in Line of Duty or a back-against-the-wall bomb disposal expert in ITV’s Trigger Point, Vicky McClure has mastered the art of procedurals over the years.

Should Sony and Apollo get their hooks into Paramount Global their strategy would be to keep theatrical release output steady between both studios –not reduced– while cutting the more burdensome parts of the conglom, read auctioning off CBS, the linear channels like MTV and Paramount Plus streaming service.

EXCLUSIVE: After successfully launching the Extraction film franchise at Netflix, director Sam Hargrave has his eyes set on another potential franchise with a piece of IP that is revving its engines to get out the gate. Sources tell Deadline that Skydance and Mattel Films have closed a deal with Hargrave to direct a live-action movie based on Matchbox, Mattel’s iconic real-world die-cast toy vehicle line. David Coggeshall and Jonathan Tropper are penning the script.

Paramount Advertising President John Halley was preparing to preside over an upfront pitch to Publicis, one of the four major holding companies in the ad business, when big news crossed the wire.

Another big Hollywood name is rooting for a Paramount-Skydance deal as Jeffrey Katzenberg says that outcome would be “a great win for Paramount and for people in the industry.”

Warren Buffett says he has sold all of his shares in Paramount Global at a significant loss.

Paramount Global says Chris McMarthy is the company’s “interim principal executive officer,” a necessity required by the SEC that apparently does not signal he has more decision-making power among a trio of top executives who stepped up to replace Bob Bakish this week in a new Office of the CEO.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor UPADTED: After months of M&A talks, Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone might be going it alone after all — for now. Insiders tell Variety that the expectation at the company is that neither of the two offers in play — Skydance Media-RedBird Capital Partners and Sony Pictures Entertainment-Apollo Global Management — will come to fruition. And Redstone is said to have reluctantly concluded that a deal with David Ellison’s Skydance, a longtime partner of Paramount Pictures, will not be possible.

The clock is ticking down to midnight, the end of a month-long exclusive negotiating window between Paramount Global and Skydance Media. The David Ellison company has been circling Paramount for months and lobbed several offers to buy out Shari Redstone‘s controlling stake, backed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital.

Partners Sony and Apollo have formally reached out to Paramount‘s special board committee asking to discuss a potential $26 billion offer, Deadline has learned. It comes as Par’s exclusive negotiating window with David Ellison‘s Skydance is set to expire.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In the latest twist in Paramount Global‘s M&A saga, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management reportedly have made a bid to take Paramount private with an all-cash buyout offer of $26 billion. Sony and private-equity giant Apollo submitted an offer letter Wednesday to Paramount Global, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The report comes as Paramount Global board’s special committee established to consider M&A proposals is evaluating the best and final offer from Skydance Media to merge Paramount and Skydance, while keeping Paramount Global public.

It was a year of pain for the entertainment industry and shareholders of (many) media companies with brutal months-long Hollywood strikes, and layoffs. Linear television continued to decline and a nascent theatrical recovery went sideways. Most CEOs saw pay packages rise in 2023, some by big multiples.

Paramount Global, which is in the midst of corporate upheaval on a number of fronts, got a slight reprieve in one key area, extending carriage negotiations with Charter Communications.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The recent broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII boosted Paramount Global‘s first quarter of 2024, stabilizing advertising revenue at its TV operations, as the company’s streaming operations added more than 3 million subscribers and cut losses there by more than 40%. Overall, Paramount narrowed its first quarter operating losses while seeing a 6% uptick in revenue, due in large part to audience and advertiser interest in its Big Game presentation, which set a new viewing record.

George Cheeks, Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy, the Paramount Global executives chosen to occupy the Office of the CEO as a replacement for the departing Bob Bakish, sought to reassure Wall Street on Monday that they have a plan.

Paramount Global‘s CEO Bob Bakish is out. The executive who has been a presence at several iterations of the company since 1997 will exit, effective immediately. A triumvirate of division heads — Brian Robbins, George Cheeks and Chris McCarthy — will step in to lead the company for now in a new office of the CEO.

Confusion and anxiety reigned at a CBS-Politico joint party today ahead of the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, with staffers shocked at news that Bob Bakish, CEO of parent Paramount Global, is set to exit abruptly as early as Monday morning.

Paramount Global is set to announce as early as Monday morning that Bob Bakish is stepping down as CEO amid talks with Skydance and ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings that afternoon.