Big Changes on the Horizon for Warner Bros, Paramount & Marvel Studios – Did You Hear? week of Friday, December 22, 20243

Did You Hear? is a weekly examination of headlines in the entertainment industry and a take on what they could mean for the future of the industry and (often), the little geeky bubble that we occupy!

Warner Bros and Paramount Talk Merger

On Wednesday this week Axios broke the news of a possible merger between Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount Global. Living and working in Los Angeles has meant years of swirling rumours surrounding the possibility of WB undergoing yet another merger (teamed with the ver present rumour of WB selling off component parts – *cough* DC Comics *cough* – and who interested buyers might be *cough* Apple *cough* Amazon *cough*), coupled with years of testy legal battles about who owns which exact rights to which component parts of Paramount (*cough* Star Trek *cough*). To read the rumours converged like this feels both completely surprising and not surprising at all.

Per Axios there are two important factors supporting this notion:

• Zaslav also has spoken to Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount’s parent company, about a deal.

• WBD’s market value was around $29 billion as of Wednesday, while Paramount’s was just over $10 billion, so any merger would not be of equals.

… which they supplement with additional info and sum up pretty nicely:

The bottom line: Talks between WBD and Paramount are still early and may not ultimately result in a deal. But given the acceleration of cord-cutting and the growing encroachment of Big Tech on media, neither company can remain on the sidelines for long.

Variety’s reporting on this story also hastened to add:

Sources said Warner Bros. Discovery senior execs felt like they had to move sooner rather than later to engage in discussions with Paramount Global after the reports about Skydance’s interest in buying out Redstone’s NAI stake.

For context, Redstone is:

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish in a lunch meeting Tuesday in New York where they discussed a possible merger, sources said. Zaslav also has talked with Shari Redstone, whose National Amusements Inc. owns a controlling stake in Paramount Global, about a potential combination of the companies.

There are no terms or further details available at this time. I’m certain we’ll be reading and writing about this for many months to come.

Jonathan Majors has been Fired by Disney and Marvel Studios

Per Deadline and “A studio rep confirmed the news about their decision to not move forward with Majors in the MCU.” we’re about to have a very different status quo for Kang the Conqueror and for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the coming years.

This news officially broke on Monday: “in the wake of the Emmy-nominated actor being found guilty of reckless assault and harassment in his domestic violence trial by a six-person NYC jury.”

Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (be it dedicated or casual), could see clearly in a post-Loki and post-Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania world the character of “He Who Remains” a.k.a. “Kang the Conqueror” was being established as a formidable foe – if not the big bad – for this new generation of Avengers moving through Phases 5 and 6.

Marvel Studios is not the first to drop Major following an arrest in March of this year for assault. It does, however, come later than others and “in the wake of the Emmy-nominated actor being found guilty of reckless assault and harassment in his domestic violence trial by a six-person NYC jury.”

Soon after his March arrest, Majors was fired by his manager 360 Entertainment and publicist The Lede Company. The actor, who received a Primetime Emmy actor drama nomination for HBO’s Lovecraft Country back in 2021, also was let go from myriad projects including Protagonist Pictures‘ feature adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel The Man in My Basement, an ad campaign for the Texas Rangers MLB team, as well as the unannounced Otis Redding biopic that the actor was circling from Fifth Season.

TL;DR expect many sudden and prolific announcements throughout 2024 about the future of the MCU.

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