It’s Done: Skydance Purchases Paramount

After over a year of speculation, Paramount Pictures finally has a new owner. The century-old movie studio will soon be in the hands of Skydance Media and its investors, along with Paramount’s parent company, National Amusements Inc.

Skydance founder and CEO David Ellison will soon move into position as CEO of Paramount as well. Former NBCUniversal head Jeff Shell will serve as president. Paramount owns a lot of iconic IPs, the ones most recognizable to this site being Star Trek, South Park and Spongebob Squarepants.

Paramount fell under the ownership of tycoon Sumner Redstone in 1987 when he purchased Viacom. Viacom no longer exists, but Redstone’s daughter Shari now controls 80% of voting shares and selling the company was her decision to make alone. ““Given the changes in the industry, we want to fortify Paramount for the future while ensuring that content remains king,” Shari said at the announcement. “Our hope is that the Skydance transaction will enable Paramount’s continued success in this rapidly changing environment.”

To everyone who would rather Paramount stay “independent” (relatively speaking)….so would I, but the reality is that it would probably collapse without outside help. The place is sunk in massive debt, more than any other studio (yes, even WB). It was inevitable that Paramount would be sold, the only question was to who. And Skydance was the best of several fates, one of which might have been WB taking it and growing undeservedly more powerful.

The buyout gives Paramount $8 billion to play around with, though this doesn’t mean there won’t be cuts at the studio (because there always is). The only question now is if Skydance will be a wiser leader than NAI was.