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Can David Ellison Break Hollywood’s Mega-Merger Curse?

In an industry increasingly reshaped by trillion-dollar tech rivals, the real test isn’t how many assets Paramount controls but whether it can turn them into a clear, unified brand.

AT&T paid $85.4 billion for Warner Bros. and failed to create value. The Walt Disney Company paid $71.3 billion for 20th Century Fox, and analysts still debate whether it was the right move. Discovery forked over $43 billion for Warner Bros. and is now selling. David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is now committing $111 billion for the same asset. Yes, there has often been sound business logic behind major media mergers in recent years. But they consistently disappoint because properly integrating all those moving parts—creative, financial, cultural, etc.—is really damn hard, time-consuming and expensive.

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“Large media mergers rarely disappoint because the strategy lacks logic. They disappoint because asset scale is easier to combine than operating models,” M&A integration expert and NYU instructor Klint Kendrick told Observer.

WarnerMount, ParaBros, or HBO-CBS (whatever they end up calling themselves) now has a war chest of blockbuster franchise IP, a roster of recognizable and........

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