Hollywood
Paramount to shoulder $79bn debt in $110bn Warner Bros deal
Ellison vows no cable sell-offs as studios unite to take on Netflix
LOS ANGELES: In a Hollywood plot twist worthy of its own blockbuster, Paramount is set to carry net debt of about $79 billion after sealing its $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros, creating one of the most formidable entertainment groups on the planet.
The deal, signed on Friday at $31 a share, ends months of bidding drama with Netflix, which ultimately declined to raise its offer. Paramount will also pay a $2.8 billion termination fee owed to Netflix, clearing the decks for the merger, which is expected to close in the third quarter.
At the helm is David Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, who pitched the transaction as less about scale for scale’s sake and more about rewriting the rules of modern media.
“This is not about consolidation, it’s about reinventing the business,” Ellison told analysts, promising that the combined group would expand its reach while sharpening its storytelling edge.
The new entity will merge Paramount+ and HBO Max into a single streaming platform, instantly creating a service with more than 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers across over 100 regions. The ambition is clear: build the heft needed to compete with streaming’s dominant force, Netflix.
Ellison confirmed that films will continue to enjoy 45-day theatrical windows before moving to premium video on demand, underscoring his belief that cinema remains the launchpad for enduring franchises.
“Franchises are launched in theatres, period,” he said, drawing a firm line under his commitment to the big screen.
The merger unites two storied studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, alongside a powerful roster of television brands. Under one corporate roof will sit CBS, MTV, Comedy Central and BET, together with CNN, HBO, TNT and Food Network.
The intellectual property vault reads like a Hollywood hall of fame: Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Top Gun, the DC Universe, Mission: Impossible and SpongeBob SquarePants among them. Together, they form one of the deepest catalogues in the industry.
The combined company expects to produce at least 30 theatrical films a year, maintaining both studios rather than folding one into the other.
Despite the hefty debt load, Paramount’s leadership was unequivocal about one point: there are no plans to spin off or sell the cable networks. Chief strategy officer Andy Gordon said the group believes firmly in the assets it is acquiring, while targeting $6 billion in cost savings and a three-times leverage ratio within three years.
That belt-tightening will inevitably raise concerns about jobs, though executives stressed that most savings would not come from production cuts and pledged continued support for HBO’s creative independence.
The transaction is expected to secure European Union approval with only minor concessions, though scrutiny is mounting in the United States. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has signalled a vigorous review, and cinema operators have warned that fewer studios could mean fewer films and potential job losses.
For now, however, the script is set. Paramount is betting big, borrowing big and thinking bigger. If Ellison’s vision holds, the merger could reshape the entertainment landscape. If not, it may prove that in Hollywood, even the grandest productions can run over budget.
Hollywood
Utopai Studios partners Huace to deploy PAI for long form content
Deal includes revenue sharing as Huace adopts AI engine across global ops
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… algorithm, the script just got a silicon co-writer. In a move that signals how storytelling itself is being re-engineered, U.S.-based Utopai Studios has partnered China’s Huace Film & TV Co. Ltd. to bring artificial general intelligence into the heart of long-form content creation.
At the centre of the deal is PAI, Utopai’s cinematic storytelling system, which Huace will deploy as a core engine across its production pipeline from development and creative iteration to global localisation. The partnership includes a large-scale annual usage commitment from Huace, alongside a usage-based revenue-sharing model, underscoring both ambition and commercial confidence on both sides.
For Huace, one of China’s largest film and television companies, the bet is not on automation alone but on scale with control. With distribution spanning over 200 countries and a presence across more than 20 international platforms, including Netflix and YouTube, the company brings a vast content ecosystem where even marginal efficiency gains can translate into significant output shifts. Its extensive TV IP library further positions it as fertile ground for AI-assisted storytelling workflows.
The choice of PAI follows what Huace described as a rigorous evaluation of existing AI tools, many of which remain limited to fragmented use cases such as video generation or editing. What tipped the scales, according to the company, was PAI’s ability to handle long-form narrative complexity maintaining continuity, structure, and creative coherence across entire story arcs rather than isolated clips.
Utopai, for its part, is using the partnership to anchor its international expansion strategy, pitching PAI as an enterprise-ready system built for customisation, privacy, and regulatory adaptability across markets. That positioning becomes particularly relevant as global media companies increasingly scrutinise how AI integrates into proprietary workflows.
The timing is notable. Earlier this month, Utopai upgraded PAI to support three-minute 4K video generation and advanced multi-shot sequencing features designed to tackle one of AI storytelling’s biggest hurdles: consistency across scenes.
What emerges is not just another tech collaboration, but a glimpse into how the grammar of filmmaking could evolve. Because if stories were once crafted frame by frame, the next chapter might just be coded scene by scene.
