Jack Warner and Adolph Zukor must be rolling over in their graves.
On Friday, David Ellison proclaimed that the combined Warner Bros. and Paramount — two brands that have held significance in the cultural landscape for a century — would be called Skydance, the name of his own original production company.
A veteran producer with ties to both Paramount and Warners called Ellison’s christening of the merged studio “a gut punch” and “painful,” while one major Paramount investor was aghast. “He’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” the investor huffed. “Skydance doesn’t mean anything to anyone.”
“So it is a tech company after all? Calling it Skydance just sealed that,” said another longtime Warners producer, who called Ellison’s announcement, made on X as his debut post on the platform, “tacky.”
On the Burbank lot, the Friday morning name drop sparked more outrage than the prospect of looming layoffs. One Warners executive called the move reminiscent of David Zaslav “at his worst.”
In 2023, the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO famously dropped the “HBO” from the company’s streaming platform and rebranded it as just “Max.” The single-word moniker was meant to signal “something-for-everyone.” In the process, Zaslav removed valuable HBO branding that stood as the pinnacle of storytelling for decades. Then, in 2025, Zaslav reversed course and announced at the WBD upfronts that the streamer would revert back to HBO Max, noting that “HBO” represented quality to customers.
“Wild. Even David Zaslav wasn’t that dumb,” said the Warners exec of the belief that the Skydance brand holds greater currency with consumers than either Paramount or Warner Bros.
Then again, it was probably a better name than when Tribune Publishing dropped its timeless name for “Tronc.” But that only lasted a couple years.