WarnerMount is quickly taking shape, now that the deal is done, and execs are coming and going. According to a report by Matthew Belloni, WBD studios heads Mike de Luca and Pam Abdy are stepping down with a problematic Digger as their final release. Belloni says that DC Studio heads James Gunn and Peter Safran “will be invited to stay on at DC, at least initially.”
Paramount’s Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg will reportedly be elevated to run the combined studio, and we can expect more meat and potatoes, Hall H-ready fare from them, a diet also approved by David Ellison.
Greenstein and Goldberg have been the subject of snark around town regarding their supposedly iffy taste and filmmaker relationships. But Ellison trusts them, and since taking over Paramount last summer, they’ve ramped up production and development, including launching a low-budget label and pursuing sequels to Star Trek, Paranormal Activity, and World War Z, plus a Call of Duty movie. On his most recent earnings call, Ellison boasted that the studio division generated more than $200 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first half of ’26. That includes more than just the film unit, but the better numbers were helped by Scream 7, Scary Movie, and “improved slate profitability,” C.F.O. Dennis Cinelli told shareholders. Lots of singles and doubles.
While HBO’s Casey Bloys will be running the combined streaming operation, exec Ynon Kreiz has been poached from Mattel to be co-CEO of WarnerMount, and oversee the hard work of removing people from their jobs – something he already did at Mattel, cutting 2000 staffers. He also oversaw the Barbie movie phenomenon, and has a background in content and IP management. But as another Puck newsletter puts it, Master of the Universe was a flop, Barbie 2 is a non-starter and Mattel’s profits overall declined.
Mattel’s sales have been flat or declining for years, suggesting a failure to capitalize on Barbie’s success. Most importantly, the stock largely traded downward during his tenure despite relentless belt-tightening, underperforming a 200 percent gain in the S&P. “He was great at cutting costs—he cut costs to the bone,” one Mattel veteran told me. “But there was zero innovation.”
Can anyone out there innovate or is it just cut, cut, cut? Our current corporate synergies concentrate on the latter, leaving kids on TikTok to do the creating.
While there will undoubtedly be lot of heartbreak and stupidity in the future of the debt-ridden WarnerMount, in the very short term, the way out of the hole is leveraging that IP. Keeping Gunn and Safran on to oversee the irreplaceable DC characters is an IP happy move. The new WarnerMount seems to like action-heavy fare, so nerd world may find a lot to like as this unfolds. Initially.
