Two major entertainment production houses merge to form new giant

It's official: Skydance-owned Paramount closed its $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, ushering in a new Hollywood giant.

The merger brings two of America's oldest moviemaking studios together under a new name: Skydance. The deal, which followed a tumultuous, roughly yearlong fight, further concentrates power in an industry already run by just a handful of major players.

HBO Max, titles ranging from "Harry Potter" to "Sinners" and networks such as CNN now find themselves under the same roof as Paramount+, CBS and the likes of "Top Gun" and "The Godfather." All are under the helm of billionaire David Ellison.

Ellison, says Sean McNulty of The Ankler, prefers franchise films and blockbusters over arthouse projects.

"His early projects have been nodding in that direction of populist fare.

So, you, know, the auteur movies may have a tough time finding a home."

"There's a smaller number of quote unquote gatekeepers, people having their button on the green light, determining what gets made, what gets produced, what gets financed, what gets distributed," added J. Christopher Hamilton, an associate professor at Newhouse at Syracuse University and practicing entertainment lawyer. "That aspect of it is something that we have to take into account. It does have an impact on the creative community and the storytellers out there who see this as yet another result of a closed conduit for their stories, for their TV shows, for their films."

On the eve of the deal's completion, Skydance confirmed that CNN's Mark Thompson will stay on as editor-in-chief of the network - separate from CBS, where Bari Weiss remains at the helm. But how the combined company's news operations will look farther down the road are yet to be seen.