California Attorney General Rob Bonta can rest easy: A merged Paramount Warner Bros Discovery would already account for 36 movies on the release schedule for 2027.
Note, that’s an organic number of theatrical releases that were always set to happen even before the union of the storied studios came together with Monday’s settlement announcement. As for 2028, the combined entity currently accounts for 25 theatrical releases, hence another five titles are needed to meet the state AGs’ agreed-upon settlement term of 30 films in the merger’s first two years of existence. That should be easy: it’s still early, and awards-season fare often gets dated later rather than sooner.
Beyond 2029, the AGs’ demand from the merged entity is for 32 films annually over three years, and it’s on Ellison to make sure this union isn’t a repeat of Disney-Fox. Missing the annual theatrical release quota could cost Paramount — per the pact with the AGs — its 49% investment in Miramax. In addition, according to Bonta, “For each film that they fail to make, should they fail to make any, $30M is paid to be split three different ways, but 90% of it goes to workers.”
RELATED: Paramount-WB Penalty If Merger Fails To Release 30 Pics A Year: Divest Miramax
Despite all the pompom-waving that the house of Harry Potter and Batman are now one with the house of Transformers, Star Trek and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the question becomes, how will Ellison’s Paramount wrangle this beast?
If merged today, the combined studios would count $838.3 million at the YTD domestic box office (January 1-September 20) for an 11% market share, ranking fourth behind Universal ($1.78 billion), Sony ($1.22B) and Walt Disney ($1.03B). Global annual numbers for Paramount and Warner Bros were not available at the time of this report, however, Universal leads all studios with around $5B worldwide, followed by Disney with $4B-plus.
Rumors that both studios would have to operate separately were wrong. We hear that as Ellison eyes his early corporate structure, one or two executives would oversee overall theatrical and film strategy and likely one or two executives would oversee each film brand. Note that this is all fluid and still in the works.
In addition, how the new conglomerate plans to deal with the duplication of marketing and distribution groups is wait-and-see. Per the release breakdown (see below), there are plenty of weekends where the studios are dating against each other. In most instances, it’s a matter of counterprogramming — e.g., May 21, 2027, when Warner Bros’ family animated pic Bad Fairies opens against a new James Wan Paranormal Activity film from Paramount. It’s arguably unprecedented for a major studio to shell out on marketing for two big films from two big labels in the same weekend. Note: It hasn’t been uncommon of late for a big studio to face off against its adult specialty label — like Universal going up against a Focus Features title.
The one glaring tentpole-on-top-of-a-tentpole frame is June 30, 2028, when Paramount’s feature take of the video game Call of Duty is up against DC’s Dynamic Duo. Also, there care cases of serious summer stacking: July 2027 has James Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow followed by Crawl 2 (granted, it’s a counter-programmer), followed by Ocean’s Prequel and A Quiet Place III.
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Zendaya as Chani in ‘Dune: Part Three’
Warner Bros.
On the bright side, before this year is over the combined entity has a possible billion-dollar hit and awards contender in Warner Bros/Legendary’s Dune: Part Three, which could create another Barbenheimer effect at the box office in its competition with Disney/Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.
While the studios can operate separately, Bonta said Monday that when it comes to negotiating and creating a marketplace where there isn’t reduced competition, “We basically ensure the status quo competition with negotiations (remaining) separately. It’s as if the companies never merged. They can’t bundle their basic cable channel assets. They can’t use them together to reduce competition… They have to remain separate and independent in their negotiations, and when they’re working with the cable companies. Same with the theatrical release.
“Usually, when you see [a deal that] reduces competition, you see people paying more for less. So you see less output, less quality. And you see higher prices. We address that by making sure that the fees remain flat for the three years between the merge company and the exhibitors, the theaters. And then the requirement, this incredible, massive requirement for production output, cures for the less part, instead of paying more for less. You have the flat-fee requirement with massive increase in production. So that’s how we address the concerns about reduced competition.”
The multibillion-dollar question as far as box office goes is whether Warner Bros Motion Picture chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy make the jump to the new entity. De Luca told us earlier this year that no matter which way the merger went (Netflix or Paramount), “we’re hoping to stay the course.” Last year was a banner year for the duo, with $4.3 billion in global box office. This year, there haven’t been as many hits, but the longtime production partners are known for their relationships with filmmakers like their recent Oscar winners Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler, as well as Alejandro González Iñárritu and Zach Cregger to name a few.
Rumors have swirled about DeLuca and Abdy heading to Sony, or Netflix (that latter rumor was fueled around town after their longtime comms chief Katie Martin Kelly departed Warners for the streamer). The reality is that the duo have a four-year extension on their contacts until 2030 to run Warners, and a world in which the pro-theatrical De Luca and Abdy remain at the helm of their ship isn’t out of the question.
Ellison said in a memo to Paramount staff today, “We are tentatively planning to close in approximately two weeks.”
Get ready…
Here’s how the box office release schedule looks at this point in time from mid-October 2026 through the end of 2028. Movies with the same release dates are in bold.
2026
Oct. 16 – Street Fighter (Par/Legendary); The Devils (WB Clockwork)
Oct. 23 – Clayface (WB)
Nov. 6 – The Cat in the Hat (WB)
Nov. 13 – Ebenezer (Par)
Dec. 18 – Dune: Part 3 (WB/Legendary)
Dec. 23 – The Angry Birds Movie (Par)
Dec. 25 – Mr. Irrelevant (Par)
2027
Jan. 8 – Untitled horror (Par)
Jan. 15 – Children of Blood and Bone (Par)
Jan. 22 – Animal Friends (WB/Legendary)
Jan. 29 The Rescue (Par)
Feb. 5 – Remain (WB)
Feb. 26 – K-Pop: The Debut (Par); The Revenge of La Llorona (WB)
March 12 – WB/New Line Event Film
March 19 – Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (Par)
March 26 – Godzilla x Kong: Supernova (WB/Legendary)
April 9 – Boys for Life (Par); Panic Carefully (WB)
May 14 – F.A.S.T. (WB)
May 21 – Untitled James Wan Paranormal Activity (Par); Bad Faires (WB)
June 11 – Possession (Par)
June 25 – Ocean’s Prequel (WB)
July 9 – Man of Tomorrow (WB)
July 16 – Crawl 2 (Par)
July 23 – A Minecraft Sequel (WB/Legendary)
July 30 – A Quiet Place III (Par)
Aug. 13 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Par); Shiver (WB)
Aug. 20 – Get Lite (Par)
Aug. 27 – Untitled Paramount Primal Horror movie
Sept 10 – The Conjuring: First Communion (WB)
Sept. 17 – Untitled Paramount Event Film
Oct. 1 – The Great Beyond (WB)
Oct. 22 – Untitled Paramount Event Film; Untitled Comedy Event Film (WB)
Nov. 5 – Untitled Paramount Film
Nov 12 – Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Par); Margie Claus (WB)
Nov. 19 – Untitled Gremlins movie
Dec. 17 – Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum (WB)
Dec. 25 – Untitled Nancy Meyers movie (WB)
2028
Jan. 14 – Longlegs 2 (Par)
Feb. 4 – Heart Eyes 2 (Par)
Feb. 18 – The Batman 2 (WB)
March 3 – Untitled New Line Event film (WB)
March 17 – Oh! The Places We’ll Go! (WB)
April 7 – Evil Dead Wrath (WB)
May 12 – One Italian Summer (Par); Final Destination 7 (WB)
June 2 – Days of Thunder (Par); Untitled WB Event film
June 30 – Call of Duty (Par); Dynamic Duo (WB)
July 7 – Untitled WB Event Film
July 14 – Untitled Paramount Horror Movie
July 21 – Hello Kitty (WB)
Aug. 11 – The Flood (WB)
Sept 8 – Gladys (WB)
Oct. 6 – WB New Line Event Film (WB)
Oct. 13 – Untitled Daniel Trachtenberg Animated Family Movie (Par)
Nov. 3 – Untitled Duffer Brothers Event Film (Par); The Lunar Chronicles (WB)
Nov. 17 – Live-Action Hybrid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Par)
Nov. 22 – Untitled Baz Luhrmann (WB)
Dec. 22 – Sonic Universe Movie (Par); Untitled WB New Line Event Film