Skydance has barely opened the doors to its new Hollywood era, and the first week has already brought some unexpected departures. David Ellison envisioned the newly unified company as “a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling,” with Paramount and Warner Bros. retaining their distinct studio identities. However, the exits of renowned executives Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have put the spotlight on the transition.

Those departures are not the only warning signs surrounding Paramount’s ambitious new chapter, as the industry watches how its plans unfold.

The trouble extends beyond the boardroom, with Paramount’s programming bets raising questions about the direction of its new era. Casey Bloys, the HBO chief behind House of the Dragon and Euphoria, will oversee streaming, while Cindy Holland, the executive Paramount hired to lead its streaming business, is leaving. Meanwhile, David Ellison has signed Rafe Judkins, whose The Wheel of Time was canceled after three seasons, to an exclusive deal.

Then there is the question of who gets held accountable when a film disappoints. James Gunn and Peter Safran remain at DC Studios despite Supergirl’s disappointing box office, while Warner Bros. executives Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are departing. With Taylor Sheridan’s eventual exit to NBCUniversal looming, Paramount faces the challenge of retaining creative talent while balancing cost-cutting demands and ambitious production commitments.

And then there is the small matter of money: roughly $80 billion in debt, alongside a commitment to release 30 films annually for the first two years. That is an ambitious schedule even without the pressure to cut costs. Skydance now has to demonstrate that its creative-first promise can survive the less glamorous business of making the numbers work.

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Barbie 2 seems to have secured its place, but Skydance’s other films and shows are facing a less straightforward journey.

For a company sitting on some of Hollywood’s most recognizable franchises, Skydance is already putting several promising projects on ice. The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, developed under the previous Warner Bros. leadership, has been indefinitely paused, with the studio reportedly waiting to assess The Hunt for Gollum before committing to further Middle-earth adventures. Three Paramount films have also been scrapped.

The cancellations include Winter Games, starring Miles Teller, the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off spin-off Victor and Sam’s Day Off, and Colin Trevorrow’s Area 51. With DC, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and Harry Potter among the franchises under its umbrella, the new regime has no shortage of valuable intellectual property. The question is how much of that creative pipeline will survive its cost-cutting drive.

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What do you think of Skydance's latest shakeups and David Ellison's potential to fix it all? Let us know in the comments!