Credit: Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash
Skydance will sell HBO Max and Paramount+ as a bundle from early 2027. It also plans to merge the two services’ technology within a year, using AI tools to move faster. The company set out the plan on 9 November with its first results since Paramount bought Warner Bros. Discovery.
The details are in the shareholder letter from chief executive David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz. Skydance did not give a price for the HBO Max and Paramount+ bundle. It said it would share more about the bundle and its streaming plans “in the coming months”.
Moving Pluto TV, Paramount’s free streaming service, onto the Paramount+ platform took about 18 months. Skydance says this one will be quicker.
“We expect to bring Paramount+ and HBO Max together much faster, aiming to align our backend systems within a year of closing,” Skydance wrote.
The quarter
The figures cover Paramount only, because the Warner Bros. Discovery deal closed on 6 October. Revenue rose 5% to $7bn and adjusted EBITDA, a profit measure that leaves out some costs, was $1bn.
Paramount+ ended the quarter with 82.2 million subscribers, up 6% from a year earlier. Its revenue rose 21% and engagement rose more than 20%, the company said. Paramount+, HBO and HBO Max together reach 203 million subscribers, a sum that does not remove people who pay for more than one. From the fourth quarter, Skydance will stop reporting subscribers every quarter.
Ellison’s bet on AI
On the earnings call, Ellison said AI would “significantly” reshape the business, The Verge reported.
He compared AI with the arrival of computer-generated imagery in the early 1990s, which gave the industry Jurassic Park and Terminator 2.
“It’s hard to imagine that AI is not going to have a more significant impact than that,” Ellison said.
Terminator cost $4M to make, he said, and a shot-for-shot remake would cost $60M to $70M today. AI tools could make such budgets “more digestible”, he said. He also said AI “will never be a replacement” for artists.
AI also sits inside the cost plan. Skydance has promised at least $6bn a year in savings within three years. The letter lists AI workflows and AI coding tools among the ways to get there.
Pluto TV shrinks
Pluto TV has about 75 million monthly active users, the letter says. That is fewer than the 89.6 million it had in 2025, according to an internal presentation that Business Insider reported on. Two Paramount streaming employees told Business Insider that a redesign in September may have played a part.
Fox-owned Tubi, a rival free service, has grown to 110 million monthly users, Business Insider reported. YouTube took 15.8% of US TV viewing in August, according to Nielsen. Skydance calls itself the second-largest media distributor by share of US TV time, after YouTube.
Debt and a new DC boss
The deal left Skydance with $87bn of gross debt and about $10bn in cash after closing, the letter says. It aims to bring net debt down to three times its annual adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2029.
“The newly merged Skydance comes with massive debt that remains at the center of concern over the company’s ability to profitably grow,” Forrester analyst Mike Proulx said before the results, Business Insider reported.
The same day as the results, Skydance announced that James Gunn and Peter Safran would step down as heads of DC Studios, the Associated Press reported. Jeremy Latcham, a former Marvel Studios executive, takes over on 1 December. Gunn is finishing Man of Tomorrow, the next Superman film.
The bundle plan comes five weeks after Skydance closed the deal and offered staff buyouts in October. Elon Musk is among the backers, having invested about $1bn in Ellison’s company.
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