Skydance will start by bundling HBO Max and Paramount+, then fold them into a single streaming service, Chairman and CEO David Ellison said Tuesday, hours after closing the $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Ellison told reporters the plan is to “bring” the two platforms together over the long term, and that a joint offer should arrive in the relatively short term. Combining the technology behind them will take time, he said, but the company intends to unify the tech stacks “as quickly as possible.” He pointed to the speed of the Paramount integration after Skydance acquired that company in August 2025, which he said finished in record time. He also argued that advances in artificial intelligence could shorten the process.
The scale is the selling point. The two services together hold a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers, a figure Ellison first cited in March. He said that base lets Skydance compete with Disney, Netflix, Amazon and “anybody in the world.” The company’s statement said its streaming products, which also include Discovery+, will “unify into a single service over time.”
Details remain thin. Skydance has not announced a name, a price or a timeline for the combined platform. HBO is expected to survive as a sub-brand. “HBO should stay HBO,” Ellison said in March, and Skydance has promised the premium network will keep operating independently. HBO chief Casey Bloys now holds the title of co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance’s direct-to-consumer arm, a role that puts him in charge of streaming for the combined company. One account says Ellison’s timetable sounds different from recent remarks by Bloys, who has not been quoted here on the matter.
Consumers face open questions. The company carries an estimated $80 billion in debt, and Engadget has speculated that subscribers could pay more once the services merge. Ellison has also acknowledged layoffs will follow the deal, which is common after media mergers as executives cut overlapping operations.
For now, Skydance keeps both apps on separate tracks. A recent company presentation listed both streaming brands side by side, a sign they will operate independently while engineers work on the shared platform.
