Skydance Corporation: What the New Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Name Means
- 🔑 Paramount Skydance Corporation says it intends to change its name to Skydance Corporation, expected effective October 6, 2026, according to its October 2 SEC filing. It is the buyer renaming itself, not a newly formed company, and the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition had not closed as of October 2.
- The same filing says the Class B stock is expected to move from Nasdaq to the NYSE on or about October 6 and trade as SKYD instead of PSKY. All three changes are worded as intended or expected, and the company’s own risk language says the deal may not close on schedule or at all.
- Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders are due $31.00 in cash per share plus a small daily amount accruing after September 30, or $31.01666668 if closing happens October 6. Under the merger agreement, WBD survives as a wholly owned subsidiary of the buyer, so this is an acquisition, not a merger of equals.
- In an October 2 post on X, David Ellison said Paramount and Warner Bros. would keep their own identities under the Skydance name and that a new corporate identity should not diminish either. The SEC filings do not map out which brands will carry which label, so this page does not guess.
- David Ellison stays chairman and CEO. Ynon Kreiz, Mattel’s chairman and CEO, is appointed co-CEO and a director effective October 5, 2026, per an October 1 filing, with Kreiz overseeing day-to-day operations and integration while Ellison leads strategy, creative direction, talent relationships, technology and capital allocation.
- A federal court entered a consent decree with 12 states on September 30 binding the combined company for five years: at least 30 U.S. film releases a year at first, 45-day theatrical windows, $300 million more in annual U.S. production spending, and a news editorial independence board within 180 days of closing.
Skydance Corporation is the new corporate name that Paramount Skydance Corporation says it intends to take on October 6, 2026, the day it expects to close its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). David Ellison, the company’s chairman and CEO, announced the name in a post on X on Friday, October 2, 2026, and the company’s SEC filing the same day says the rename, a move to the New York Stock Exchange and a new ticker are all expected that Tuesday. As of October 2, the deal has not closed, so everything below describes what was announced and expected, not what has happened.
What exactly is changing on October 6, 2026?
Three things are expected to change on October 6, 2026: the company’s legal name, the exchange its stock trades on, and its ticker symbol. In an 8-K filed October 2, Paramount Skydance said it intends to amend its certificate of incorporation to become Skydance Corporation, to transfer its Class B common stock from Nasdaq to the NYSE, and to change the ticker from PSKY to SKYD.
| Item | Now | Expected |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Paramount Skydance Corp. | Skydance Corp. |
| Exchange | Nasdaq | NYSE |
| Ticker | PSKY | SKYD |
The company’s September 25 filing said Nasdaq trading was expected to end at the close on or about October 5, with NYSE trading starting at the open on or about October 6. Until the charter amendment takes effect, the legal name on SEC filings remains Paramount Skydance Corporation.
Has the Warner Bros. Discovery deal actually closed?
No. As of October 2, 2026, the acquisition has not closed; the two companies said on September 30 that they expect it to close on October 6, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions. Their own filings warn that the deal may not be completed in the expected time frame or at all, and we are not predicting which way it goes.
The main obstacle was legal. On September 30, a federal court in the Northern District of California entered a consent decree resolving a lawsuit by California and 11 other states and modified the earlier order that had blocked closing. A separate Writers Guild of America lawsuit was settled under a September 21 agreement. Paramount had said on September 8 that it held clearances from regulators in 69 jurisdictions and that the two lawsuits were the only remaining barrier.
Is this a merger or an acquisition?
It is an acquisition: Paramount Skydance is buying WBD for cash, and the company being renamed is the buyer. Under the February 27, 2026 merger agreement, a Paramount subsidiary merges into WBD, with WBD surviving as a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. WBD shareholders receive cash, not shares of the buyer: $31.00 per share plus $0.00277778 for each calendar day after September 30, 2026, which the companies calculate as $31.01666668 per share if the closing happens on October 6.
The February 27 release put WBD’s enterprise value at about $110 billion. The legal structure says who owns whom, not how the businesses will be organized or branded day to day.
Where does the name Skydance come from?
Skydance is the name of the production company Ellison started earlier in his career, and the company’s own page says he took it from an aerobatic flying maneuver called skydancing. The name is already part of the current corporate name. Paramount Skydance Corporation was created to hold Paramount Global and Skydance Media, and on August 7, 2025, the transaction closed and both became its subsidiaries, according to the company’s filing.
So the October 2 announcement drops the word Paramount from the parent company’s name rather than introducing a new brand.
What happens to the Paramount and Warner Bros. names?
According to Ellison’s October 2 post on X, Paramount and Warner Bros. are meant to keep their own identities under the Skydance parent. News reports quoting the post say he wrote that the name gives the combined company an identity of its own while keeping Paramount, Warner Bros. and the company’s other brands in the spotlight, and that he never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either studio. He called Skydance “a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
Trade coverage calls the studios sub-brands; that is the outlets’ shorthand, not a term from the filings, and the October 2 8-K says nothing about brand structure. Some reports list HBO, CBS, CNN, Nickelodeon and DC among units under the parent, but we have not found a company document saying which names stay, which combine, or how streaming services will be organized, so we do not state it.
Who will run the company?
David Ellison remains chairman and CEO, and Ynon Kreiz, Mattel’s chairman and CEO, is appointed co-CEO and a director effective October 5, 2026. An October 1 filing says Ellison will remain the sole principal executive officer. In its September 30 release, the company said Ellison will focus on long-term strategy, creative direction, talent relationships, strategic partnerships, technology and capital allocation, while Kreiz handles day-to-day management and integration of the combined businesses.
What did the state and Writers Guild settlements require?
The September 30 consent decree binds the combined company to five years of commitments covering films, production spending, cable negotiations and news. The filing lists these main terms:
| Area | Commitment |
|---|---|
| Films | 30 U.S. releases a year (years 1-2), 32 after |
| Theaters | 45-day minimum window |
| U.S. production | $300M a year above 2025 levels |
| News | 5-member board within 180 days |
The decree also requires separate basic cable negotiations for the two companies’ channels and keeps Pluto TV (or an equivalent successor) free and ad-supported. The news board is meant to resolve specified editorial disputes at CBS News and CNN. The decree was entered for settlement purposes and is not an admission of a violation. Under the separate Writers Guild settlement, the company is to contribute $17.5 million to the Writers’ Guild-Industry Health Fund within seven days of closing and pay the guild’s legal fees up to $6.0 million.
What happens next, and when will this page update?
The next checkpoints are Kreiz’s October 5 start date and the expected October 6 closing, rename and NYSE listing. We will update this page in place once SEC filings or a company announcement confirm what happened, and we will change the dates if the closing slips. Until then, treat every date here as an announced expectation, not a completed event.
How we verified this
✅ The name, ticker and exchange changes were read directly in the company’s own October 2, 2026 SEC filing (Form 8-K, Item 7.01). It says the company intends to amend its certificate of incorporation to become Skydance Corporation, to move its Class B stock from Nasdaq to the NYSE, and to change the ticker from PSKY to SKYD, all expected effective October 6, 2026. The September 25 filing was used for the Nasdaq-to-NYSE trading dates (“on or about” October 5 and 6).
✅ Deal terms, leadership and settlement figures were re-read in the text of four further SEC documents, not taken from summaries: the February 27, 2026 announcement and merger-agreement description, the September 30 joint release announcing the anticipated October 6 closing, the October 1 filing on Ynon Kreiz, and the September 30 filing on the consent decree and Writers Guild settlement. The 30/32 films, 45-day window, $300 million, 180 days, $17.5 million, $6.0 million, $31.00 and $0.00277778-per-day figures all match the filing text. The 2025 formation of the parent company was checked against the company’s August 2025 filing.
⚠️ Ellison’s post on X could not be opened directly (the page returned a payment-required error to our tools). The opening lines of the post appeared in a search listing, and its wording and the point about keeping the Paramount and Warner Bros. identities were read in four full news reports from different publishers (a TV news site, a financial news network, an entertainment news site and an animation trade site) that agreed with one another. One of those outlets is owned by a party to the deal, so we leaned on the unaffiliated reports for the wording. Several other trade and national outlets were paywalled or blocked and were not read.
⚠️ “Sub-brand” is trade-press shorthand, not a term from any filing. No company document we could read says whether the Paramount and Warner Bros. labels cover only the film studios or also CBS, HBO, CNN, Nickelodeon, DC and the streaming services, so the page does not say. A plan to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ appears only in secondary sources and is left out.
⚠️ Figures that differ between sources: WBD’s value is $110 billion enterprise value in the company’s own February 27 release but about $111 billion in some news reports (we followed the release). Skydance’s founding year also differs between sources, so it is omitted. Financing figures are inconsistent across sources and are left out.
🔴 The deal was not closed at write time, and closing is still contingent. As of the afternoon of October 2, 2026 (U.S. Eastern), the filings say only that the closing, the rename, the NYSE listing and the SKYD ticker are expected on October 6, and the company’s own risk language says the deal may not be completed on time or at all. One crowd-edited reference page already describes the closing in the past tense; we did not use it because no primary document confirms it.
✅ Left out on purpose: stock-price reactions, warrant terms and pricing, analyst commentary, financing figures, executive compensation and political criticism. No betting odds, spreads, prediction-market prices or probability models appear anywhere on this page, and nothing here forecasts a price, a closing or a regulatory outcome.