This time last year, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy were battling persistent reports that they were on the way out as heads of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, having made too many pricey bets on risky films. That made the studio’s triumph at the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday all the sweeter, as Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” two of the films that had the Hollywood rumor mill buzzing, dominated the ceremony. “One Battle After Another” scored six prizes, including best picture and best director for Anderson, while “Sinners” picked up four statuettes, including best original screenplay for Coogler and a lead actor Oscar for Michael B. Jordan.
“It’s the greatest night of my life,” De Luca exclaimed at the Governors Ball following the awards show. “Paul was very overdue. He’s made so many masterpieces. And Ryan will be back.”
In fact, De Luca and Abdy were thanked more times than God during the three-hour-and-30-minute show, getting shoutouts by everyone from Coogler to Jordan, the latter of whom praised them for “betting on original ideas and original artistry.”
David Zaslav, the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO who was reportedly interviewing replacements for De Luca and Abdy last spring, went largely unacknowledged (a spokesperson for WBD denied that Zaslav ever looked for new studio heads). But the $110 billion sale of WBD to Paramount that Zaslav has orchestrated hung over the festivities, as the industry braces for the thousands of layoffs that will result from the consolidation. Not only that, but there are fears that David Ellison, Paramount’s chairman, who has flaunted his ties to the Trump administration, won’t grant the kind of artistic freedom that De Luca and Abdy offered.
At the Vanity Fair after-party, Jane Fonda wore a “no mergers” pin and made it clear that she sees Ellison as a threat to free expression.
“The Paramount merger is problematic because in order to get permission to do the merger they felt they had to cave to what Trump wanted,” Fonda said, adding, “The mergers are gonna be bad for workers. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. … We’re going to have political control over what we do.”
For De Luca and Abdy, Oscar night, which saw Warners win 11 Oscars, including a prize for Amy Madigan’s turn in “Weapons,” validated their artist-friendly strategy. It was one they instituted when they were enlisted to revitalize Warner Bros. in 2022. They faced a daunting challenge. During COVID, Warner Bros., then owned by AT&T, debuted its entire slate on HBO Max to bolster the streamer and salvage its investment while theaters were closed. But the company’s ham-fisted approach to the pivot, one that saw them barely consult the directors who worked at the studio, drew outrage from Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve.
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De Luca and Abdy, veteran producers who had reinvigorated MGM, helping to position the studio for its $8 billion sale to Amazon, boasted strong relationships with talent. De Luca, for instance, had given Anderson his big break when he served as New Line’s production chief in the 1990s, setting up “Boogie Nights” after other studios passed. At Warner Bros., the pair decided that to compete with Netflix and other streamers, they needed to offer bigger budgets and more autonomy. In the case of “Sinners,” they not only backed a historical horror movie to the tune of $90 million but signed a deal giving Coogler the copyright back after 25 years. They also handed out $130 million to Anderson and spent big on Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!”
“It’s a relationship-based business, and Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy resurrected the creative community’s relationship to the studio,” says Peter Newman, head of NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ MBA/MFA program. “But David Zaslav nearly lost his patience with what they were doing. Will David Ellison really be on board if Mike and Pam are handing out $100 million to auteur directors?”
Initially, De Luca and Abdy were rewarded at the box office for their bravery, with “Sinners” and “Weapons” among 2025’s biggest hits and the studio scoring with “A Minecraft Movie” and “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” But their recent films have been less successful. “One Battle After Another” topped out at just under $210 million and will lose close to $100 million, because theaters keep half of ticket sales. Meanwhile, “The Bride!” was a flop, earning $21 million against its $90 million budget. Studio sources believe it will lose roughly $90 million when marketing costs are taken into account.
“The movie business is about taste, timing and a gambler’s luck,” says Newman. “Mike and Pam were on a heck of a hot streak, but those can’t last forever.”
Ellison has told several people that he’s a fan of both “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another,” citing Michael B. Jordan’s performance as a standout. However, a source with knowledge of Ellison’s business approach, says he would never greenlight anything that would “lose $100 million out of the gate” and won’t be influenced by politics when it comes to his decisions.
On Oscar night, De Luca and Abdy displayed the hottest hand in Hollywood, even as there was a sense that the good times might not last much longer. When he accepted his Oscar for writing “One Battle After Another,” Anderson, who had gone home empty-handed from his 11 previous nominations, quipped, “You make a guy work hard for one of these.”
If the Paramount deal for Warner Bros. is consummated, it may be even harder for daring filmmakers like Anderson and Coogler to get the backing they need to realize their visions.
Marc Malkin and Matt Donnelly contributed to this report.
From Variety US