Bill Mechanic Argues Against Paramount Global Becoming The Second Fabled Hollywood Studio Stripped Down & Sold For Parts: Guest Column
Editor’s note: Underplayed in the media intrigue over the prospect of Warner Bros swallowing Shari Redstone’s empire that includes Paramount and CBS is the gloomy reality that another storied Hollywood studio could go the way of Fox. That went from a vibrant multi-faceted creative content-generating enterprise to a headstone, when Rupert Murdoch decided to cash out for Disney stock. David Zaslav spent 2023 kicking employees and finished films to the curb to pay down debt just to get this far; chances are more blood will spill down Melrose if Redstone sells some or all the pieces of Paramount to be mashed into an existing studio. When Bill Mechanic was perched atop Paramount, Disney and Fox, he built Disney’s home video from a $30 million to $3 billion business, and found ways to take risks and squeeze max returns from blockbusters from Braveheart to Titanic, Independence Day and many others. Who better to remind Hollywood that once a major studio dies, it never comes back, and that there might be better ways to squeeze better performance out of an established creative business with global pipelines?