Hours after the Skydance-Paramount merger closed last Thursday, the new studio leadership group led by co-Chairs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg sent a loud message to the town that they meant business, closing a deal for the hot Timothee Chalamet-James Mangold package High Side, which Deadline first told you about.
It was a bold move and a bolt of energy that told the town that Paramount 2.0 wasn’t looking to cut back on its upcoming feature slate, rather make on the promises made during merger talks. The new David Ellison led entertainment conglom, which prevented a further collapsing of the motion pictures studios, even had No. 1 exhibition boss, AMC’s Adam Aron, giddy on an earnings call Monday about the prospects for more movies on the big screen. Paramount in recent years has averaged 11 to 14 feature films.
“Paramount has been cash hampered in recent years, which has caused them to greenlight fewer movies than they might have liked to. It appears to us that Skydance is cash rich, and it would be our expectation that Skydance will be releasing more movies coming out of Paramount than Paramount has been releasing in recent years,” said Aron.
While High Side is still a ways off, the new top feature brass, which also includes President Don Granger, has plenty of projects to dive into as they get settled into their new office space on the Melrose lot. From high-profile franchises that have a been at the center of their release schedules for decades to new original stories featuring A-list talent, below is a list of where things stand on several properties that could help build the future slate.
While it might seem like a high jump for the new administration to succeed, particularly at a studio which lost Marvel to Disney in 2009, it’s only recently that Paramount saw some of its best grosses in more than a decade in 2022 when Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise’s highest grossing movie ever, and technically Paramount’s a global level, rallied their annual grosses to $1.29 billion domestic, and $2.6 billion global. And Ellison’s Skydance had a tremendous amount to do with that success having co-financed 50% of Top Gun: Maverick. No doubt making Top Gun 3 a reality will be a prime to-do for Greenstein, Goldberg and Granger.
Speaking of co-financing, what happens now that the studio’s biggest co-financer is now the owner? Sources tell us that the plan is for the new Paramount on future big tentpoles ala Star Trek and Top Gun is to keep the upside completely. Any slate co-financing is bound to happen on the mid-sized budget movies that have risk potential.
The previous Brian Robbins’ led regime leaves behind a trove of high-end talent production deals for the new C-suite to tap, i.e. Ryan Reynolds, Damien Chazelle, Krasinski, the genre label 18hz led by Walter Hamada which as the movie Primate upcoming, and Smile producer Temple Hill.
While High Side marked the first major package the studio purchased, when it comes to the first films to go into production, sources say its too early to say given that no greenlights have been given as the top brass gets settled. That said, insiders say films like The Rescue with 1923‘s Brandon Sklenar in talks to star has a strong chance given the ties the project has to the current regime.
Another high priority for the Skydance owned Paramount, is Star Trek which Ellison has been involved with since the 2013 sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. As for right now they are developing a film that includes brand new characters that Andor director Toby Haynes is on board to direct with Seth Grahame Smith writing and Simon Kinberg and J.J. Abrams producing. They also have another installment with Captain Kirk, Spock and the rest of usual characters returning that also has Abrams producing and Steve Yockey writing.
The one project the studio is sure to have an eye is what to do with the next installment in the Top Gun franchise after the sequel blew box-office records. Though it has not been formally announced, news broke in 2023 that Ehren Krueger had begun working on a script for the next film. Star and producer Tom Cruise has focused on the most recent Mission: Impossible films not much has moved forward on the film. Now that Cruise is off those projects and looking for what his next film could be, don’t be surprised if movement starts to pic up on this property.
On the Transformers front, the franchise saw a rebooted live-action film, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ($442M global box office) starring Anthony Ramos in 2023 and an animated pic, Transformers One, bow last year. Prior to sale, the studio had three separate scripts in development including one version that sources say has Michael Bay returning to the franchise. Those scripts should be ready for new leadership to take a look at shortly.
The most recent high-profile franchise to get a release date for its next installment was A Quiet Place Part III, which the studio recently dated for summer 2027. John Krasinski is back to write and direct though no cast is attached at this time.
Following the success of the animated pic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutan Mayhem, the studio had moved fast on a sequel, dating the next film for Sept. 17, 2027. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are back to produce with Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears and Yashar Kassai directing. They also have a live-action version based on the graphic novel that has Walter Hamada producing.
Some of the other titles include the Olympic pic, Winter Games, starring Miles Teller and Hailee Steinfeld, a Ferris Bueller spin-off and prior to the merger, the studio had been developing Sam & Victor’s Day Off, most recently hiring Ben Zazove and Evan Turner for a rewrite, and What Kids Want, with Bill Holderman and Erin Simms attached to rewrite the script and direct.
There are also a number of Skydance development titles coming over which include The Rescue, an Untitled John Tuggle film starring Superman star David Corenswet, a film based on the Mike Hammer books starring Matthew McConaughey with Nic Pizzolatto writing and The Traveler, with Lee Isaac Chung attached to direct. While not confirmed at this time it is fair to say that these Skydance priority pics will now become priority projects at Paramount.
Currently the Paramount 2025-2026 schedule looks as follows:
Roofman – Oct. 10
SpongeBob Movie: The Search for Squarepants – Dec. 19, 2025
Scream 7 – Feb. 27
Untitled Trey Parker/Matt Stone/Kendrick Lamar movie – March 20
Scary Movie – June 12
PAW Patrol – The Dino Movie – July 24
The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender – Oct 9
Children of Blood & Bone – Jan 15, 2027
The Angry Birds Movie 3 – Jan. 29, 2027
Untitled K-Pop movie – Feb. 12, 2027
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – March 19, 2027
A Quiet Place III – July 9, 2027
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 2 – Sept. 17
