A Puck report says Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are out as the Paramount merger reshapes the studio. DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran will reportedly be invited to stay, with one significant qualifier attached.
DC fans got the answer they wanted this week, with an asterisk.
According to a report from Matthew Belloni at Puck, James Gunn and Peter Safran will be invited to remain at the helm of DC Studios as Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery combine into one company.
However, Belloni reports they will be invited to stay “at least initially.”
If true, that does not necessarily mean it’s a permanent thing. They could choose to leave because Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are out.
None of this has been confirmed by either company which is calling itself Skydance for now.
The film chiefs are out
Belloni reports that Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, who ran Warner Bros. Pictures, are stepping down. Their final release under the report is a film called Digger.
In their place, Paramount’s Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg would be elevated to run the combined studio.
That pair has been building a specific kind of slate at Paramount. Since taking over last summer, they launched a low-budget label and pursued sequels to Star Trek, Paranormal Activity and World War Z, plus a Call of Duty movie.
Franchises and sequels. That’s the direction, and David Ellison reportedly backs it.
Paramount’s studio division generated more than $200 million in adjusted EBITDA in the first half of 2026, which Ellison has cited publicly. CFO Dennis Cinelli credited Scream 7, Scary Movie and what he called improved slate profitability.
The co-CEO hire comes from Mattel
Ynon Kreiz has reportedly been hired away from Mattel to serve as co-CEO of the combined company.
Kreiz ran Mattel through the Barbie phenomenon, which gives him a genuine IP success story. He also cut roughly 2,000 jobs there.
Puck’s assessment of his tenure is blunt. Mattel’s sales were flat or declining for years, and the stock traded downward during his run while the S&P gained 200%.
A Mattel veteran quoted in the report put it more directly: “He was great at cutting costs. He cut costs to the bone. But there was zero innovation.”
Which sounds concerning for a studio that needs innovation.
The plan seems to be reducing expenses and leaning on existing intellectual property.
Honestly, Hollywood needs to get back to innovation and films that don’t cost several hundred million dollars to make.
Casey Bloys gets streaming
Casey Bloys, the HBO chief, will run the combined streaming operation under the new structure.
Bloys built HBO’s prestige slate and has overseen Max through multiple rebrands. Putting him in charge of the merged streaming business is one of the less surprising decisions in the report.
How the merger got here
The deal closed after a contested legal fight.
Twelve Democratic state attorneys general sued to block the $111 billion acquisition on antitrust grounds, then settled on Sept. 21. A coalition of press freedom and film groups won an emergency motion to file briefs opposing that settlement, briefly delaying approval days before Paramount would have started owing roughly $7 million a day to Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount has since settled lawsuits over the acquisition, and the combined company is now taking shape.
Neither company has announced an official name for the merged studio. The informal shorthand circulating in the trades is “WarnerMount.”
What’s actually confirmed
Very little.
This all traces to Belloni’s reporting at Puck. Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have not announced any of these appointments or departures publicly.
Belloni has a good track record on rumors. That makes this somewhat credible, but not official.
No timelines have been reported for when any of these changes take effect, and no statements have come from Gunn, Safran, De Luca, or Abdy.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Puck (October 2026), Matthew Belloni’s reporting on the De Luca and Abdy departures, the Gunn and Safran invitation, the Greenstein and Goldberg elevation, the Ynon Kreiz hire and the Mattel assessment
The Beat (Oct. 2, 2026), Heidi MacDonald’s report surfacing the Puck coverage and the combined studio structure
The New York Times (July 31, 2026), the reporting on the Barbie sequel’s status
Variety, Deadline and TheWrap (September 2026), the antitrust settlement, the Block the Merger challenge and the merger terms
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