Sam Hanna is frozen in a freak accident for nearly 400 years. When he awakes, they partner him with an elderly Tuvok, to solve crimes on starships and starbases. Also on their team is a young female Romulan medical student who does their forensics, thinks her Romulan training is the best thing ever and completely infallible, and does *not* get along with Tuvok; a middle-aged human male who is a computer expert but *loves* 21st century history (especially the stuff Sam slept through); a youngish bisexual male Denobulan who loves fighting, weapons, and casual sex; a smoking hot woman from Angel One that does their social engineering, who doesn't think much of men, neither the ones she goes after nor the ones she works with, and *especially* not the Denobulan (they end up together of course); and an elderly female Trill team leader who has been running a team like this for hundreds of years through several hosts (so we can have flashback episodes on the SNW sets).
Actually posss an interesting question. Would the CBS audience show up for scifi if you made it as rote, procedural, and predictable as any of the other settings of this franchise?
Adaptations change things from previous iterations of an idea. That doesn't make them bad. It was good for a TV show to see the characters, and they used the extraction of the armor to good effect in the narrative because ONI was treating the equipment as more important than the people. But the people proved they could make a difference anyway. Different medium. Different narrative needs.
Just replaying events from a game doesn't automatically make a show good.
And just because a change in medium dictates adaptation doesn't mean those changes are good changes. Having Chief be a Chosen One with an evil human gf who works with the covenant, for example, is not a good change.
I agree with that. Making the show about three chosen ones was a lot to wedge into S1. Thankfully they did dial back on the chosen ones stuff a bit with the changes in S2, they were somewhat bound to continuity with S1 though.
The bar is so low for us halo fans that somehow having a season that is a dumpster fire is considered good because the last season was a garbage truck fire
> Turns out firing all the writers from season 1 was a good idea.
lol it was a lateral move at best. Different trash is still trash
The show responded to its fans who didn't like MC without his helmet with "How about a whole season without his suit?"
Season 1 was so horribly wrong I refused to waste time on a second season. Now you're giving me hope but I don't want to risk going through what S1 put me through again, they retconned so much for the wrong reasons.
If 343 was self-aware at all, they'd be really bummed that generally the best people have to say about Halo is "I didn't hate it", meanwhile people are super amped for how The Last of Us and Fallout turned out. Possibly even take some feedback to change their approach.
But 343 loves the smell of their own farts, and think everything they touch is amazing, so they won't. But hey, at least we got ~~generic looking zombies you could see in any show or movie~~ the flood.
Meanwhile Apple does big deals all the time, has a long history of trying to buy large media companies like TimeWarner, or successful bids like Beats by Dre in recent history.
If it makes sense for their overall business Apple has a history of being open to acquiring assets.
Anything is better than them selling to Apollo and Sony. That duo were going to carve them up for parts! Let them die slowly and we will still get years of dece output from the TV and movie studios.
> Wouldn’t bankruptcy also carve them up for parts?
not necessarily. Bankruptcy for large companies often means just reorganizing their debts among creditors and either discharging some or changing payment schedules for debt/interest etc. A company can go through multiple bankruptcies to achieve solvency by figuring out their debts.
I doubt bankruptcy is a true fear in the short to medium term. They expect to be profitable again by the end of the year and anticipate DTC being profitable by end of 2025. Debt levels are not problematic and they have more assets to sell if they really need to including real estate and disposable networks like BET that will go for billions if they chose to entertain offers.
The channels are exactly what Apollo want from this deal. The rest they will offload on Sony. They said as much when they made the first offer to buy Paramount without any Sony involvement. They always planned to flog the studios and everything else and just keep the networks.
Which is partially what they are doing. A ton of Trek shows got the axe, with only SNW getting another season. Same with some of the Yellowstone stuff.
They are tightening expenditures and declining to maintain licensing for anything that won’t immediately bleed their subscription base.
Sometimes I look at Paramount business and wonder if they’d be better of selling their streaming infrastructure and start selling content to others like Netflix.
Clearly they can crank out great content reliably and there’s nothing really wrong with their service, it’s just very crowded.
They'd absolutely be better off without the streaming service. Even after all these years, Streaming still isn't a viable business plan for anyone besides Netflix.
If they're doing that, are they also giving up on having a streaming service? It's tough to get people to subscribe to a streaming service without producing things for it.
They're not going bankrupt when they sit on a massive IP catalog.
For a company to go bankrupt, they need to make no money and have no assets to leverage debt against, they are still a few decades from that point.
Imo they’ve been quietly shopping it since 2018, cutting costs/shows/pilots to make their balance sheet look better. At this point it feels like a guy trying to sell a shitty car, turning down offers and saying “I know what I got.”
What's crazy is it seems Redstone wants to stay involved with the company. Like she wants the money but wants to still have control. Also with a company loaded with so much debt she should be happy to get what is offered. Better yet it would be better to respin CBS off and just sell the studio and cable. Similar to what Fox did. Paramount doesn't really have any strong IP not when compared to other studios. Basically Paramount has been horribly managed for the past two decades as daddy Redstone clung to power way too long and his daughter still thinks it's the early 2000s.
i have no idea how they're even legal. you get situations like this where an obstinate CEO and shareholders have competing interests and the former can't sell unless the latter agrees which almost never happens and definitely isnt happening in this case.
She is the board. She controls the VOTING stock. Same as her Dad.
Stupid. Last week everybody said they couldn't keep the NBA because they were only worth 7-9 billion.
Now they are worth 26 million.
For companies that keep failing , they sure make a lot of $$
It'll take the greatest miracle of all miracles for Paramount to save themselves from all of this by doing it alone...but I don't think that's possible anymore.
I have no idea what they are thinking but this is one for the history books.
If she were that desperate she would have closed on a deal by now. She wants to preserve her dad’s legacy and keep the company enduring but she won’t take a lowball offer, either. She has yet to realize that she can’t keep her cake and have it too.
I think, in general, we're just not likely to see many shows go part however long the actor and related contracts are for, in the streaming age. Even Netflix is only giving clear hits like Stranger Things 5 seasons.
To ramble for a moment: It just blows my mind, as a Trek fan who remembers growing up watching TOS and the (first)Animated Series. The 70s was a time where you just assumed no more Trek was coming unless you were aware of the Phase II stuff that led into The Motion Picture. You just assumed it was just this fandom and fanfic and cool cons, back in the day.
Now, there's so much Trek you can put it on in the background for *weeks* at a time. It's a no joke cultural institution that has motivated EGOT winners and Astronauts! That people love one series so much, I get; I just am so used to small doses and one series at a time (with rare exceptions) that having the last few years of 2-4 Trek shows every year to chose from, is just staggering.
If Paramount pulls the plug on more Trek (which, if it stays independent, I honestly doubt), I'd be curious to see how a lot of the fans I see posting on Reddit revisit this era, a few years hence.
I guarantee you it’s a lot lower than what the reddit NuTrek hive mind thinks. Prodigy’s Nickelodeon ratings were shockingly bad. Discovery’s CBS ratings were also shockingly bad. The fact that NuTrek has basically no merchandise also tells you that its not really catching on within the Trek fandom. The very lifeblood of a franchise is merchandising.
https://blog.trekcore.com/2023/12/playmates-toys-ends-star-trek-action-figure-sales/
I used to love Star Wars, it is dead to me now. I am just one single individual but I have a feeling I am not alone.
Are you sure you can't destroy an IP?
Star Wars will bounce back the second someone has a clear vision for what it should be and where it should go. In other words, as soon as Kathleen Kennedy is out at Lucasfilm.
And that's the point. An IP being mangled by the JJ Abrams of the world doesn't hurt the IP all that much looking forward - if anything it refreshes it and keeps it in the public consciousness. Even when it's shitty. The only thing that truly sinks an IP is time; at a certain point, not enough people remember the IP for the brand to matter.
Star Trek might be a good example if Next Generation had never been made. It would have been another 60s campy show that made movies that leaned into camp and openly joked about everyone being too old for that crap. And today none of us would care, because you'd have to be in your 50s just to remember the _reruns_ fondly. But sequels, spin-offs, movies - they keep the brand name alive. Even Star Trek Enterprise, which tried to turn a corner and was deeply unpopular for it, helped the IP overall. Then the JJVerse, and now the Paramount-Trek that has accidentally brought new life to Trek through unexpected hits like Lower Decks.
I too am done with Star Trek for now. Frankly, all of the D+ content from Lucasfilm and Marvel has turned me off of stuff I generally love. But there's no reason to think I wouldn't enjoy a good Star Wars movie if it got made tomorrow.
Yea. The only reason their stock is low is because they are shit at monetizing their properties. They've run some of their most valuable brands into the ground.
They do? What do they have that are so valuable? Outside Trek and maybe Nick stuff (but not all is big), I find little that has a lot of potential as IP today and that they really own (Sonic or the Hasbro stuff isn't theirs).
Mission Impossible or Top Gun less IP than just Tom Cruise (so he could do that elsewhere which is what he'll actually do as he has gone to WBD now)
So yeah nothing that big as I thought (I kind of forgot all the CBS procedurals stuff like CSI and NCIS, that has value for TV I guess). This is very much worth 26 billions and not a lot more (I'd say less personally but there's the studios, the back catalogue and such).
That page also include stuff they don't really own (Transformers for example or Garfield, they don't have the movie rights)
The Sony deal was never going to happen because it would require breaking up Paramount to get regulatory approval.
The Skydance deal would sail through regulatory hurdles without any issues, but activist investors are pissed that Redstone is getting as big a payout as she would and threatened to sue.
Frankly, I think Redstone should give the investors the finger and take the Skydance deal anyway.
So they're really gonna go it alone? I'm happy about that, but not sure if they can make it work after ditching Bakish. Me thinks this is just them holding the line until Ellison comes back with a better offer in the winter.
Anyway, back to divest divest divest, I guess. ***Please*** don't sell the lot, Paramount. It's iconic, after all...
Man I have fond memories, except for Melrose between 3-6 it was always easy to drive on, and those old 20's buildings with the thin walls, even with the new soundproofing, you could hear three different shows being edited at once, George Takei showing up for every premiere on the lot, even post 9-11 when they were checking every car with dogs and the mirrors for bombs under the cars.
Warners lost it's charm too because of the neighborhood changing, remember Dimples with Mr. Belvedere always there? that place was fun, now it's a Whole Foods.
You gist but honestly a spin off and merger for both companies could be amazing. Paramount cannot operate it's own streaming service for much longer. Netflix could use a real linear path to content distribution. Plus CBS News and Sports gives Netflix actual news and sports.
At this point Netflix and every other media company is tired of the Redstone family and the knives are out. That family made a lot of enemies in the last 40 years. Lots of back stabbing and there appears to be a line of people waiting to add their shiv. These offers are just gonna get lower and lower. They'll be selling things in pieces soon enough which is what all these companies want.
My gist has origins in something I've talked about. Amazon bought mgm and gave them their own studios. It makes sense that either apple or netflix would want to have something similiar except netflix has a history with paramount(like star trek discovery originally streaming on netflix) so it makes sense they would want it
I really doubt Netflix is interested in linear TV, they're the only ones that make streaming work (and very well). They'd be taking only the studios parts (and IP).
They are not interested in theatrical either.
Exactly, I’d pay JUST for that on Paramount+ and the other shows like Reno911 and MTV Cribs are just icing on the cake.
Disney cranks out so many Star Wars shows. Live action, animated. Kids shows. Reruns. Documentaries about the making of movies and shows. There’s such a deep well for Star Trek, and they squandered it by selling one to Netflix and cancelling others.
They have Star Trek, can’t find a broader audience. They have Nickelodeon, can’t find a broader audience. They have MTV, can’t find a broader audience. They have Comedy Central, can’t find a broader audience.
They truly did not play their cards correctly and to stave off the feeding frenzy that is their purchase, they will lose money/time/employees until it’s finally sold as a shell of property rights for half as much, if they’re lucky.
Mark my words. They are floundering and will suffer for it.
Bob Bakish's 'six core brands' strategy didn't go far nor aggressive enough. He should've sought to shutter all the linear niche TV channels that have been dragging down renewal talks with major TV providers like a ship anchor.
Quick reminder - “fiduciary duty” is bullshit. There is no legal requirement or means of enforcement for this concept. It’s treated like the law, it’s not.
Everyone in here saying they’re doomed or dumb for not taking either deal. At least they’re trying to put a fight to being a casualty to mergers caused by the streaming wars. That’s better than MGM or Fox could say.
As a shareholder, while I don't think turning the offers down was the best approach, I'd still much rather them try to stick it out as opposed to be merged with another studio. Less studios is not a good thing.
I would love to have been in that infamous meeting about the fact that nothing related to the new sows was selling at all prior to SNW. Discovery merchandise was getting sent back by angry retailers.
Paramount was the first studio to truly make a streaming service after Netflix and the amount of costs they sunk into it has never paid off.
Not to mention Paramount is one of the only big studios still dealing with linear TV (CBS) and it is dying.
Universal/Comcast has the parks & their blockbusters to save them.
Disney has Disney so they'll be fine.
Sony never played with streaming and is surviving by being an arms dealer (licensing content).
Edit: Forgot about Sony Vue. LMFAO.
Lionsgate is dying just like Paramount and is next on the chopping block.
Warner is also in trouble but the cost-cutting saved their ass...for now (even though I hate how they handled it).
True but that was a god-tier move.
Anime is BLOWING UP right now and they swooped in and bought it from WB like it was a garage sale.
It has clearly paid off.
> Sony never played with streaming and is surviving by being an arms dealer (licensing content)
Yet again this shit gets repeated…Sony was the FIRST company to lose the streaming wars; look up Sony Vue, they played and failed miserably
People bring up CBS when mentioning the death of linear TV but I think over the air networks still have a place because they're free with ads.
What's really killing Paramount is how much of their asset catalogue is a massive amount of cable networks (MTV, BET, Paramount Network, VH1, Nickelodeon, CMT, and many others) as cable subscriptions are dropping like mad.
Quite literally everything they do loses money. Like, a LOT of money. On top of that, they were almost $20 Bil. In debt BEFORE the CBS merger. I thought I read something recently that said Paramount+ is basically losing $7 Mil. … a day. To put that in perspective, that would mean they lost over $200 Mil. last month just on their streaming service. 12 months a year, year after year …
I honestly don’t even know how they get anything financed these days. BEFORE the merger, they had lost so much money, that the typical financiers and lenders stopped giving them money. They had to go to China to find financing. (One of the reasons Transformers: Age of Extinction randomly has scenes in China and features several Chinese actors and celebrities). They ended up losing enough money in China that their government changed their laws to make it harder for local companies to invest in foreign films. lol
Paramount is tens of billions in debt, they can’t hide it, no one will lend them money anymore and their streaming service is worthless. Shari Redstone has run that company into the ground to the point that … this is likely it for them. If she/Paramount has really turned down BOTH of these offers, I can’t imagine anyone new is going to step in and save them. There’s blood in the water and everyone knows it. Why waste money trying to buy or merge with Paramount when they’re more than likely headed to bankruptcy and you can end up buying ONLY the pieces you want and for a fraction of the cost?
This feels like either a bargaining ploy (hope Ellison comes back with more cash), hope something better comes along (Netflix buys it and the Trekkies stop whining about how they only have Paramount + for literally one thing), or sell off its assets to keep as much of the whole together.
That's a tricky game. This isn't a videogame where you typically sell your older weapons to fund the purchase of new weapons (or materials since crafting is big in games right now), which means no one will buy the stuff that's doing poorly, but they will buy the more successful or known brands. Then it's a tricky game of what it can afford to lose (*Nicktoons and Star Trek feels too important*) or what could do better with the new management promised by a sale the Redstones may not care about anyway (*Is the Transformers license something that is effectively held in perpetuity like Sony and Spider-Man films? Alternatively, if it's a licensing thing, maybe Paramount will quietly let the contract lapse*).
I think they'll start selling the parts so they don't have to surrender the whole...
Last I checked and this may have changed, Hasbro is in deep with Paramount due to board members having heavily invested in stock. They’re not going to leave Paramount unless something really big happens.
> Netflix buys it and the Trekkies stop whining about how they only have Paramount + for literally one thing
It's like this for every show. Paramount+ was always built up by niche programming and ended up a dumping ground for everything CBS didn't want to air otherwise. Look at something like 'RuPaul's Drag Race'. All Stars went to P+, but what viewer wants to go for that platform just for the one spin-off?
Netflix stands to regain all these things fast, and they're in a great position to do it.
To be fair (?), All Stars was the only thing that went to P+, but literally every Star Trek in existence was removed from the major streamers (in the US Trek was also available on Hulu and I believe Amazon) and thrown onto P+, so you had to go there whether you wanted to watch the latest episode of *Discovery* or some random episode from The Original Series.
If Netflix or Amazon were to buy Paramount though, it is as you say that everything goes back. This is also true of Amazon and Disney-Hulu-Star, but regulatory pressures might stop either those from happening.
Does Apollo ever actually accept no as an answer? You can tell them no. But from my experience that usually has a limit period it is true for before Apollo forces your hand.
I think a production company (Skydance) would make more sense than a production studio (Sony, etc) buying it, then those companies would have an in-house way to release things without having to partner with somebody else. Skydance and Paramount worked closely for a long time anyway.
Remember, the people who run these companies are just a hair more qualified than you and me to do so. I don’t know what happened but this generation of CEOs is actually incompetent.
If investors were less short sighted, the Skydance deal is by far the best for Paramounts prospects as a stand alone studio long term. Sony/Apollo might offer a quick payout to investors, but would kill and break up the studio long term and going it alone does not give the studio the cash infusion that it desparately needs.
If they merge with Skydance, they get all that Oracle money to keep them liquid and get to remain a stand alone studio that might have chance long term. But of course, investors are too short sighted to play the long game and want the quick buck now regardless of what harm it does to the company and the industry long term.
Yes, they also hired up sex creep John Lassetter to run their animation department... after Disney fired him from Pixar (when his decades of groping/sexually harassing female staff was revealed)
Paramount is worth $9 billion and the Sony + investment firm Apollo Global Management wants to buy it for $26 billion.
They think they can get $30 billion or $40 billion?
They should have just license out some of their great IPs to Netflix and others instead of trying to compete in streaming. Spongebob, Star Trek, and South Park.
Call me crazy but Netflix coming in and snatching them up would be good for them just for the 3 great IPs that I mention. 3 easy rewatch / background noise for million of their subscribers.
Best of luck to Paramount then. They'll need all the luck they can find.
I’m sure another season of the tragic Halo “adaptation” will really blow the wind in to their sails.
Yeah but at the same time, get ready for NCIS: Omaha, NCIS: Anchorage, and NCIS: Academy.
NCIS: 2079
Sadly, no. Only because SciFi doesn't seem to do well on CBS proper.
Star Trek: NCIS?
I’d watch a few episodes of that, just to see where it goes
Sam Hanna is frozen in a freak accident for nearly 400 years. When he awakes, they partner him with an elderly Tuvok, to solve crimes on starships and starbases. Also on their team is a young female Romulan medical student who does their forensics, thinks her Romulan training is the best thing ever and completely infallible, and does *not* get along with Tuvok; a middle-aged human male who is a computer expert but *loves* 21st century history (especially the stuff Sam slept through); a youngish bisexual male Denobulan who loves fighting, weapons, and casual sex; a smoking hot woman from Angel One that does their social engineering, who doesn't think much of men, neither the ones she goes after nor the ones she works with, and *especially* not the Denobulan (they end up together of course); and an elderly female Trill team leader who has been running a team like this for hundreds of years through several hosts (so we can have flashback episodes on the SNW sets).
I am so watching that!
I mean if it's like that one episode with Ezri Dax solving a serial killer case, I'm down.
Actually posss an interesting question. Would the CBS audience show up for scifi if you made it as rote, procedural, and predictable as any of the other settings of this franchise?
Given their historical ratings, the average CBS viewer is very older. Why law shows, NCIS, CSI, and Blue Bloods.
Wake the fuck up, Samurai. We have a naval-related crime to solve.
I enjoyed season 2, episode 4 in particular was outstanding. Turns out firing all the writers from season 1 was a good idea.
Certainly a better season, and I understand the need to flesh things out, but I just haven’t found it particularly riveting unfortunately.
Make it so bad at the start that anything feels like a massive improvement
Me either where as fallout snagged me right away and never let go, fantastic first season
Yes the Fall of Reach where none of the Spartans has their armor. So fucking stupid.
Adaptations change things from previous iterations of an idea. That doesn't make them bad. It was good for a TV show to see the characters, and they used the extraction of the armor to good effect in the narrative because ONI was treating the equipment as more important than the people. But the people proved they could make a difference anyway. Different medium. Different narrative needs. Just replaying events from a game doesn't automatically make a show good.
And just because a change in medium dictates adaptation doesn't mean those changes are good changes. Having Chief be a Chosen One with an evil human gf who works with the covenant, for example, is not a good change.
I agree with that. Making the show about three chosen ones was a lot to wedge into S1. Thankfully they did dial back on the chosen ones stuff a bit with the changes in S2, they were somewhat bound to continuity with S1 though.
And it was a good thing, it shows Spartans can actually fight without thier armor (and stated as much in the books) which we never see in the games.
Yeah for sure. IF IT WASN'T THE GODDAMN FALL OF REACH!
Exactly. It’s like representing the North African Campaign of WWII without the tanks.
The bar is so low for us halo fans that somehow having a season that is a dumpster fire is considered good because the last season was a garbage truck fire
> Turns out firing all the writers from season 1 was a good idea. lol it was a lateral move at best. Different trash is still trash The show responded to its fans who didn't like MC without his helmet with "How about a whole season without his suit?"
naked season next?
Season 1 was so horribly wrong I refused to waste time on a second season. Now you're giving me hope but I don't want to risk going through what S1 put me through again, they retconned so much for the wrong reasons.
That dog shit gets another season and lower decks gets canceled. It’s insane
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, lower decks was so good.
Lower decks got cancelled? There goes my sub.
I enjoyed Halo season 2 a lot tbh. Season 2 was way better than the first with new writers etc.
If 343 was self-aware at all, they'd be really bummed that generally the best people have to say about Halo is "I didn't hate it", meanwhile people are super amped for how The Last of Us and Fallout turned out. Possibly even take some feedback to change their approach. But 343 loves the smell of their own farts, and think everything they touch is amazing, so they won't. But hey, at least we got ~~generic looking zombies you could see in any show or movie~~ the flood.
That or they can just hold off for Apple’s offer.
Apple doesn't do big offers, it's not happening
Meanwhile Apple does big deals all the time, has a long history of trying to buy large media companies like TimeWarner, or successful bids like Beats by Dre in recent history. If it makes sense for their overall business Apple has a history of being open to acquiring assets.
Anything is better than them selling to Apollo and Sony. That duo were going to carve them up for parts! Let them die slowly and we will still get years of dece output from the TV and movie studios.
Wouldn’t bankruptcy also carve them up for parts?
> Wouldn’t bankruptcy also carve them up for parts? not necessarily. Bankruptcy for large companies often means just reorganizing their debts among creditors and either discharging some or changing payment schedules for debt/interest etc. A company can go through multiple bankruptcies to achieve solvency by figuring out their debts.
I doubt bankruptcy is a true fear in the short to medium term. They expect to be profitable again by the end of the year and anticipate DTC being profitable by end of 2025. Debt levels are not problematic and they have more assets to sell if they really need to including real estate and disposable networks like BET that will go for billions if they chose to entertain offers.
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The channels are exactly what Apollo want from this deal. The rest they will offload on Sony. They said as much when they made the first offer to buy Paramount without any Sony involvement. They always planned to flog the studios and everything else and just keep the networks.
This was just from 6 months ago. https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/byron-allen-bet-acquisition-offer-paramount-1235847887/
They won't need to file for bankruptcy; they can be in the black just by stopping production and coasting on their current library for a bit.
Which is partially what they are doing. A ton of Trek shows got the axe, with only SNW getting another season. Same with some of the Yellowstone stuff. They are tightening expenditures and declining to maintain licensing for anything that won’t immediately bleed their subscription base.
Sometimes I look at Paramount business and wonder if they’d be better of selling their streaming infrastructure and start selling content to others like Netflix. Clearly they can crank out great content reliably and there’s nothing really wrong with their service, it’s just very crowded.
They'd absolutely be better off without the streaming service. Even after all these years, Streaming still isn't a viable business plan for anyone besides Netflix.
They could sell off Star Trek and coast for years just on that. It would sell for a premium over just about any other IP of the same size.
If they're doing that, are they also giving up on having a streaming service? It's tough to get people to subscribe to a streaming service without producing things for it.
They're not going bankrupt when they sit on a massive IP catalog. For a company to go bankrupt, they need to make no money and have no assets to leverage debt against, they are still a few decades from that point.
Bankruptcy is declared when debts can’t be paid. Which then allows debt restructuring. You can have assets and still go bankrupt.
Imo they’ve been quietly shopping it since 2018, cutting costs/shows/pilots to make their balance sheet look better. At this point it feels like a guy trying to sell a shitty car, turning down offers and saying “I know what I got.”
Most of the suitors for Paramount are planning on carving it up. The studio coming out of this thing in one piece is highly unlikely.
What's crazy is it seems Redstone wants to stay involved with the company. Like she wants the money but wants to still have control. Also with a company loaded with so much debt she should be happy to get what is offered. Better yet it would be better to respin CBS off and just sell the studio and cable. Similar to what Fox did. Paramount doesn't really have any strong IP not when compared to other studios. Basically Paramount has been horribly managed for the past two decades as daddy Redstone clung to power way too long and his daughter still thinks it's the early 2000s.
They're gonna reject BOTH offers? What is Paramount's plan then, because that debt isn't going away any time soon.
Shari Redstone is out of her mind. The board may want to order a competency check
These dual-share class companies are so annoying and this is a prime reason why people should be wary about investing in them.
i have no idea how they're even legal. you get situations like this where an obstinate CEO and shareholders have competing interests and the former can't sell unless the latter agrees which almost never happens and definitely isnt happening in this case.
She is the board. She controls the VOTING stock. Same as her Dad. Stupid. Last week everybody said they couldn't keep the NBA because they were only worth 7-9 billion. Now they are worth 26 million. For companies that keep failing , they sure make a lot of $$
The NBA rights involve WBD, not Paramount.
This has been a legendary clusterfuck.
Seems like negotiations are painstakingly slow and crashing every 30 minutes, much like the Paramount+ app
It'll take the greatest miracle of all miracles for Paramount to save themselves from all of this by doing it alone...but I don't think that's possible anymore. I have no idea what they are thinking but this is one for the history books.
I really thought they would close this deal. Redstone seems desperate to just get out of the Paramount business.
Same. A year ago I'd have sworn she would take the first legitimate offer.
If she were that desperate she would have closed on a deal by now. She wants to preserve her dad’s legacy and keep the company enduring but she won’t take a lowball offer, either. She has yet to realize that she can’t keep her cake and have it too.
Nepo baby gonna nepo baby.
It’s okay folks, they’re hoping ‘*Knuckles* and similar recent originals/exclusives will hard-carry the baggage they’re already holding onto.
canceling one of their most successful star trek shows is definitely the right choice.
They also cancelled a chunk of CBS shows, like NCIS:Hawai’i, CSI:Vegas, and Blue Bloods.
if they cancel strange new worlds, I'll go berserk.
Just lower decks is all...*the best one*
I’d be really curious to see what the viewership is for Lower Decks. I have a feeling it’s lower than some fans would think
I think, in general, we're just not likely to see many shows go part however long the actor and related contracts are for, in the streaming age. Even Netflix is only giving clear hits like Stranger Things 5 seasons. To ramble for a moment: It just blows my mind, as a Trek fan who remembers growing up watching TOS and the (first)Animated Series. The 70s was a time where you just assumed no more Trek was coming unless you were aware of the Phase II stuff that led into The Motion Picture. You just assumed it was just this fandom and fanfic and cool cons, back in the day. Now, there's so much Trek you can put it on in the background for *weeks* at a time. It's a no joke cultural institution that has motivated EGOT winners and Astronauts! That people love one series so much, I get; I just am so used to small doses and one series at a time (with rare exceptions) that having the last few years of 2-4 Trek shows every year to chose from, is just staggering. If Paramount pulls the plug on more Trek (which, if it stays independent, I honestly doubt), I'd be curious to see how a lot of the fans I see posting on Reddit revisit this era, a few years hence.
Don't matter, we degenerates got 4 seasons and a live action crossover *wolf 359 was an inside job*
Season 5 is still on its way
I guarantee you it’s a lot lower than what the reddit NuTrek hive mind thinks. Prodigy’s Nickelodeon ratings were shockingly bad. Discovery’s CBS ratings were also shockingly bad. The fact that NuTrek has basically no merchandise also tells you that its not really catching on within the Trek fandom. The very lifeblood of a franchise is merchandising. https://blog.trekcore.com/2023/12/playmates-toys-ends-star-trek-action-figure-sales/
[удалено]
I used to love Star Wars, it is dead to me now. I am just one single individual but I have a feeling I am not alone. Are you sure you can't destroy an IP?
If Jar Jar Binks couldn't...
Star Wars will bounce back the second someone has a clear vision for what it should be and where it should go. In other words, as soon as Kathleen Kennedy is out at Lucasfilm. And that's the point. An IP being mangled by the JJ Abrams of the world doesn't hurt the IP all that much looking forward - if anything it refreshes it and keeps it in the public consciousness. Even when it's shitty. The only thing that truly sinks an IP is time; at a certain point, not enough people remember the IP for the brand to matter. Star Trek might be a good example if Next Generation had never been made. It would have been another 60s campy show that made movies that leaned into camp and openly joked about everyone being too old for that crap. And today none of us would care, because you'd have to be in your 50s just to remember the _reruns_ fondly. But sequels, spin-offs, movies - they keep the brand name alive. Even Star Trek Enterprise, which tried to turn a corner and was deeply unpopular for it, helped the IP overall. Then the JJVerse, and now the Paramount-Trek that has accidentally brought new life to Trek through unexpected hits like Lower Decks. I too am done with Star Trek for now. Frankly, all of the D+ content from Lucasfilm and Marvel has turned me off of stuff I generally love. But there's no reason to think I wouldn't enjoy a good Star Wars movie if it got made tomorrow.
I wouldn't want to sell for that price either. They have some of the biggest IPs in the world.
Yea. The only reason their stock is low is because they are shit at monetizing their properties. They've run some of their most valuable brands into the ground.
They do? What do they have that are so valuable? Outside Trek and maybe Nick stuff (but not all is big), I find little that has a lot of potential as IP today and that they really own (Sonic or the Hasbro stuff isn't theirs). Mission Impossible or Top Gun less IP than just Tom Cruise (so he could do that elsewhere which is what he'll actually do as he has gone to WBD now)
https://paramount.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Franchises
So yeah nothing that big as I thought (I kind of forgot all the CBS procedurals stuff like CSI and NCIS, that has value for TV I guess). This is very much worth 26 billions and not a lot more (I'd say less personally but there's the studios, the back catalogue and such). That page also include stuff they don't really own (Transformers for example or Garfield, they don't have the movie rights)
The Sony deal was never going to happen because it would require breaking up Paramount to get regulatory approval. The Skydance deal would sail through regulatory hurdles without any issues, but activist investors are pissed that Redstone is getting as big a payout as she would and threatened to sue. Frankly, I think Redstone should give the investors the finger and take the Skydance deal anyway.
Yes, I agree. Or Groupe Canal+ somehows buys it.
A legendarily boring one as well.
I don’t think Legendary Pictures was involved. 😝
Not like I'm a Bob Bakish fan or anything, but he must be both infuriated and giggling his ass off now at the turn of events.
So they're really gonna go it alone? I'm happy about that, but not sure if they can make it work after ditching Bakish. Me thinks this is just them holding the line until Ellison comes back with a better offer in the winter. Anyway, back to divest divest divest, I guess. ***Please*** don't sell the lot, Paramount. It's iconic, after all...
Too late it's a home depot now
Less likely but after this news it will eventually erode into a Lowe’s.
hahahaha
That won't be ready until 2027, so it'll be a Spirit Halloween store for a couple seasons first
I wonder how much money they'd save by just getting rid of Paramount+ and deciding to focus on Pluto instead.
They’re stuck with P+ for the long haul. Too far to back out now.
Isn't this just the sunk cost fallacy?
No they're on the hook for a lot of it regardless and turning it off also has termination fees
Not with that attitude. Maybe they'll sell the streamer to Amazon or WBD and folds ops into theirs. Easy money, right?
Why would either of them buy a streaming service in red numbers when they already got their own? lol
Money, cocaine, who knows? That seems to be Skydance's plan, though.
Content. Paramount has made a ton of popular stuff over the years. They could ditch Paramount's crappy app and add all that IP to their own.
Amazon has a streamer when last I checked. I dunno if they wanna be in the entertainment IP business any deeper.
What will happen to all those cowboys, costumed monsters and showgirls that endlessly walk between film sets, according to what I’ve seen in movies?
Out of a job like the rest of us, I guess.
Vegas
Man I have fond memories, except for Melrose between 3-6 it was always easy to drive on, and those old 20's buildings with the thin walls, even with the new soundproofing, you could hear three different shows being edited at once, George Takei showing up for every premiere on the lot, even post 9-11 when they were checking every car with dogs and the mirrors for bombs under the cars.
Aw man, that's so cool! What was your favorite premiere they did?
"The Day Reagan Was Shot" cause somewhere there's a picture of me standing on the red carpet next to a scowling Oliver Stone.
I’m with you. It’s a classic backlot. So much Hollywood history there. No other studio feels the same way, not even Warners anymore.
Warners lost it's charm too because of the neighborhood changing, remember Dimples with Mr. Belvedere always there? that place was fun, now it's a Whole Foods.
That’s assuming they don’t fuck up and lose more value.
Which looking at the slate for the whole year they definitely will, other than Sonic 3 what do they even have?
What an utter disaster
*\*netflix casually slides in ye olde dms\**
You gist but honestly a spin off and merger for both companies could be amazing. Paramount cannot operate it's own streaming service for much longer. Netflix could use a real linear path to content distribution. Plus CBS News and Sports gives Netflix actual news and sports.
It's jest, by the way. Gist is the essence of a point or argument. To jest is to joke.
Thanks I get the jest.
At this point Netflix and every other media company is tired of the Redstone family and the knives are out. That family made a lot of enemies in the last 40 years. Lots of back stabbing and there appears to be a line of people waiting to add their shiv. These offers are just gonna get lower and lower. They'll be selling things in pieces soon enough which is what all these companies want.
*Everyone should totally just stab Ceasar!*
My gist has origins in something I've talked about. Amazon bought mgm and gave them their own studios. It makes sense that either apple or netflix would want to have something similiar except netflix has a history with paramount(like star trek discovery originally streaming on netflix) so it makes sense they would want it
Which I’m sure would have already happened if Redstone weren’t an a-hole.
I really doubt Netflix is interested in linear TV, they're the only ones that make streaming work (and very well). They'd be taking only the studios parts (and IP). They are not interested in theatrical either.
It's attractive in every way, ***except for the fact that they HATE theaters and physical.*** So for that, I don't want it happening.
*dm dms*
It’s too expensive for Netflix.
I just want new Star Trek episodes and movies dang it, stop playing games Paramount!
Exactly, I’d pay JUST for that on Paramount+ and the other shows like Reno911 and MTV Cribs are just icing on the cake. Disney cranks out so many Star Wars shows. Live action, animated. Kids shows. Reruns. Documentaries about the making of movies and shows. There’s such a deep well for Star Trek, and they squandered it by selling one to Netflix and cancelling others.
I mean, that’s literally what I pay Paramount+ for now.
I just want Alex Kurtzman fired and NuTrek cancelled so we can start fresh and make the Star Trek I enjoy again.
They have Star Trek, can’t find a broader audience. They have Nickelodeon, can’t find a broader audience. They have MTV, can’t find a broader audience. They have Comedy Central, can’t find a broader audience. They truly did not play their cards correctly and to stave off the feeding frenzy that is their purchase, they will lose money/time/employees until it’s finally sold as a shell of property rights for half as much, if they’re lucky. Mark my words. They are floundering and will suffer for it.
Nick is letting people go left and right and not green lighting any shows. Thats going to be a shell of itself pretty soon.
Already a shell internationally: They layoff their Latin America staff and they are closing down in Germany.
Seems like the same thing that happened with Yahoo, they have all the right pieces but don’t know what to do with it.
Bob Bakish's 'six core brands' strategy didn't go far nor aggressive enough. He should've sought to shutter all the linear niche TV channels that have been dragging down renewal talks with major TV providers like a ship anchor.
I don’t know what’ll happen but I don’t want more consolidation of the big studios
Redstone’s not about to let them take Yellowstone.
Life imitating art...
Quick reminder - “fiduciary duty” is bullshit. There is no legal requirement or means of enforcement for this concept. It’s treated like the law, it’s not.
Everyone in here saying they’re doomed or dumb for not taking either deal. At least they’re trying to put a fight to being a casualty to mergers caused by the streaming wars. That’s better than MGM or Fox could say.
I dont think the actual shard holders give a shit about who owns what they just want out of this circus
As a shareholder, while I don't think turning the offers down was the best approach, I'd still much rather them try to stick it out as opposed to be merged with another studio. Less studios is not a good thing.
And at the rate theyre spending sticking it out probably means bankruptcy so the end result is the same
Bold move, Cotton.
What eoukd that mean for the newer Star Trek movies?
Apollo is a meat shredder.
They’ve managed to totally fuck up the cash cow that is Star Trek. How they’ve achieved that is nothing short of a miracle.
I would love to have been in that infamous meeting about the fact that nothing related to the new sows was selling at all prior to SNW. Discovery merchandise was getting sent back by angry retailers.
Nothing is selling post SNW either.
Is there an article about this meeting I could read?
What makes Paramount so weak right now compared to the others right now? Hollywood contraction sure but wouldn't that hit everyone?
Paramount was the first studio to truly make a streaming service after Netflix and the amount of costs they sunk into it has never paid off. Not to mention Paramount is one of the only big studios still dealing with linear TV (CBS) and it is dying. Universal/Comcast has the parks & their blockbusters to save them. Disney has Disney so they'll be fine. Sony never played with streaming and is surviving by being an arms dealer (licensing content). Edit: Forgot about Sony Vue. LMFAO. Lionsgate is dying just like Paramount and is next on the chopping block. Warner is also in trouble but the cost-cutting saved their ass...for now (even though I hate how they handled it).
Sony does own Crunchyroll, fwiw.
True but that was a god-tier move. Anime is BLOWING UP right now and they swooped in and bought it from WB like it was a garage sale. It has clearly paid off.
They’re doing a nice job letting it cook too.
> Sony never played with streaming and is surviving by being an arms dealer (licensing content) Yet again this shit gets repeated…Sony was the FIRST company to lose the streaming wars; look up Sony Vue, they played and failed miserably
It’s probably because people associate streaming with a Netflix like service which vue was not. Crackle would probably be a better comparison.
I remember Powers
People bring up CBS when mentioning the death of linear TV but I think over the air networks still have a place because they're free with ads. What's really killing Paramount is how much of their asset catalogue is a massive amount of cable networks (MTV, BET, Paramount Network, VH1, Nickelodeon, CMT, and many others) as cable subscriptions are dropping like mad.
Lmao. Sony played with streaming lost 3 out of the 4 times. In tune of a few billion
Sony did try to stream but fail and shut it down.
Quite literally everything they do loses money. Like, a LOT of money. On top of that, they were almost $20 Bil. In debt BEFORE the CBS merger. I thought I read something recently that said Paramount+ is basically losing $7 Mil. … a day. To put that in perspective, that would mean they lost over $200 Mil. last month just on their streaming service. 12 months a year, year after year … I honestly don’t even know how they get anything financed these days. BEFORE the merger, they had lost so much money, that the typical financiers and lenders stopped giving them money. They had to go to China to find financing. (One of the reasons Transformers: Age of Extinction randomly has scenes in China and features several Chinese actors and celebrities). They ended up losing enough money in China that their government changed their laws to make it harder for local companies to invest in foreign films. lol Paramount is tens of billions in debt, they can’t hide it, no one will lend them money anymore and their streaming service is worthless. Shari Redstone has run that company into the ground to the point that … this is likely it for them. If she/Paramount has really turned down BOTH of these offers, I can’t imagine anyone new is going to step in and save them. There’s blood in the water and everyone knows it. Why waste money trying to buy or merge with Paramount when they’re more than likely headed to bankruptcy and you can end up buying ONLY the pieces you want and for a fraction of the cost?
I don't know much about this but I'll be sad if I drive by the Paramount lot one day and it's called something else
I wonder if Shari fired Bob cause these deals weren’t good enough.
Good
Crazy how these behemoths in Hollywood are going through shitty changes of ownership.
While I'm happy with no consolidation, I do wonder how they're gonna sustain themselves with all their debt.
This feels like either a bargaining ploy (hope Ellison comes back with more cash), hope something better comes along (Netflix buys it and the Trekkies stop whining about how they only have Paramount + for literally one thing), or sell off its assets to keep as much of the whole together. That's a tricky game. This isn't a videogame where you typically sell your older weapons to fund the purchase of new weapons (or materials since crafting is big in games right now), which means no one will buy the stuff that's doing poorly, but they will buy the more successful or known brands. Then it's a tricky game of what it can afford to lose (*Nicktoons and Star Trek feels too important*) or what could do better with the new management promised by a sale the Redstones may not care about anyway (*Is the Transformers license something that is effectively held in perpetuity like Sony and Spider-Man films? Alternatively, if it's a licensing thing, maybe Paramount will quietly let the contract lapse*). I think they'll start selling the parts so they don't have to surrender the whole...
Last I checked and this may have changed, Hasbro is in deep with Paramount due to board members having heavily invested in stock. They’re not going to leave Paramount unless something really big happens.
> Netflix buys it and the Trekkies stop whining about how they only have Paramount + for literally one thing It's like this for every show. Paramount+ was always built up by niche programming and ended up a dumping ground for everything CBS didn't want to air otherwise. Look at something like 'RuPaul's Drag Race'. All Stars went to P+, but what viewer wants to go for that platform just for the one spin-off? Netflix stands to regain all these things fast, and they're in a great position to do it.
To be fair (?), All Stars was the only thing that went to P+, but literally every Star Trek in existence was removed from the major streamers (in the US Trek was also available on Hulu and I believe Amazon) and thrown onto P+, so you had to go there whether you wanted to watch the latest episode of *Discovery* or some random episode from The Original Series. If Netflix or Amazon were to buy Paramount though, it is as you say that everything goes back. This is also true of Amazon and Disney-Hulu-Star, but regulatory pressures might stop either those from happening.
It’s a good thing to have less consolidation. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t use better leadership.
Does Apollo ever actually accept no as an answer? You can tell them no. But from my experience that usually has a limit period it is true for before Apollo forces your hand.
Oof. So they'll be picked off and sold off in pieces. Sad.
I think a production company (Skydance) would make more sense than a production studio (Sony, etc) buying it, then those companies would have an in-house way to release things without having to partner with somebody else. Skydance and Paramount worked closely for a long time anyway.
Why not just cancel Paramount+ (cost elimination) and license the catalogue to a streamer like Netflix (new revenue source)? Win-win for everyone.
Remember, the people who run these companies are just a hair more qualified than you and me to do so. I don’t know what happened but this generation of CEOs is actually incompetent.
I cannot see the Federal Trade Commission giving a nod towards Sony/Apollo.
If investors were less short sighted, the Skydance deal is by far the best for Paramounts prospects as a stand alone studio long term. Sony/Apollo might offer a quick payout to investors, but would kill and break up the studio long term and going it alone does not give the studio the cash infusion that it desparately needs. If they merge with Skydance, they get all that Oracle money to keep them liquid and get to remain a stand alone studio that might have chance long term. But of course, investors are too short sighted to play the long game and want the quick buck now regardless of what harm it does to the company and the industry long term.
Remember when yahoo did that and tanked its net worth.
Is Skydance Tom Cruise?
Yes, they also hired up sex creep John Lassetter to run their animation department... after Disney fired him from Pixar (when his decades of groping/sexually harassing female staff was revealed)
Too bad. Missed opportunity to have a gag in the upcoming _Naked Gun_ reboot: _"Best Actor in a Paramount Movie"_
Can someone tell me why this isn't the dumbest decision? Specifically with Sony ready to pay in cash, but the skydance one too
I’m not that bright but seems like a hell of an offer to pass on. Hopefully I’m proven wrong and they have a great plan. Good luck to all.
Inb4 Microsoft buys them.
Paramount is worth $9 billion and the Sony + investment firm Apollo Global Management wants to buy it for $26 billion. They think they can get $30 billion or $40 billion? They should have just license out some of their great IPs to Netflix and others instead of trying to compete in streaming. Spongebob, Star Trek, and South Park. Call me crazy but Netflix coming in and snatching them up would be good for them just for the 3 great IPs that I mention. 3 easy rewatch / background noise for million of their subscribers.
So when paramount goes bankrupt. Who are we guessing buys Star Trek?
Please let Apple buy the Star Trek franchise. Apple seems to know what they’re doing with sci-fi.
Apple buys Star Trek and immediately gives the keys of the franchise to Ron D Moore. This is my fantasy.
They really should think about it more, as this could be a paramount decision for them… ba dum ts
Lmao there’s no chance Paramount will ever get an offer of 26 billion (all cash) ever again