Hollywood
Paramount Skydance to fuse HBO Max and Paramount+ in $110 billion megadeal
Ellison vows reinvention, not retrenchment, as combined group eyes 200m subscribers and $69 billion revenue
LOS ANGELES: Streaming’s latest land grab is colossal. Paramount Skydance Corp. will combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform after signing a $110 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc..
The transaction, formally inked on 27 February, is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. Paramount agreed to pay $31 per share in cash, fending off rival suitors including Netflix Inc..
On a conference call, chief executive officer David Ellison confirmed the streaming tie-up. HBO Max, with 131m subscribers, and Paramount+, with 79m, would be merged into one platform. Yet HBO, he stressed, would endure as a brand even after integration.
“Across the two platforms, there are over 200 million D2C subscribers today in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide, positioning us to compete effectively with the leading streaming services in today’s marketplace,” Ellison said.
The pitch is scale with swagger. The combined entity expects to generate $69 billion in pro-forma revenue in 2026, with estimated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $18 billion, according to chief financial officer Dennis Cinelli. Net debt is projected at $79 billion.
Ellison was emphatic that the strategy is expansionary. The group is targeting at least 30 theatrical releases annually across its studios and does not plan to cut production. “This is not about consolidation, it’s about reinventing the business,” he said.
Sport will be central to that reinvention. Ellison highlighted rights to the National Football League, Ultimate Fighting Championship, March Madness, the PGA Tour and the Olympics in Europe. A previously signed $7.7 billion UFC deal offers flexibility to air events on Warner Bros.’ TNT network, he added.
The future of certain legacy investments remains murky. Warner Bros. Discovery holds less than 10 per cent of AEW, whose television rights deal for TBS, TNT and HBO Max runs through 2027, with an option to extend to 2028. It is unclear whether that stake would be divested or retained post-merger.
Paramount said it has no plans to spin off its cable networks. A shareholder vote is expected in the spring, chief operating officer Andy Gordon said.
Funding the takeover is as muscular as the ambition. Paramount has secured $47 billion in equity backed by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners, alongside $54 billion in borrowing from Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo Global Management Inc..
Investors were cautious. Paramount shares slipped 1.9 per cent to $13.26 in morning trading in New York.
If regulators sign off, the deal will redraw the streaming map — welding together premium drama, blockbuster film, live sport and global distribution under one roof. In the battle for eyeballs, Paramount Skydance is betting that bigger is not just better, but unbeatable.
Hollywood
Remembering Chuck Norris: the man, the myth, the legend at 86
From martial arts legend to internet folklore, fans honour his final level up
KAUAI: The world lost a legend on 19 March 2026, when Chuck Norris died aged 86. For a man long treated as immortal in internet folklore, the news felt almost unreal. Yet in true Norris fashion, the farewell has been less about mourning and more about myth-making.
Just days before his passing, on his 86th birthday, Norris shared a video from Kauaʻi, Hawaii, showing him sparring under the sun. His caption was characteristically wry: “I don’t age. I level up.” It now reads like a final wink to fans who had spent years elevating him to near-superhuman status.
His death followed a sudden medical emergency while on holiday. He passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, who described him not just as a global symbol of strength, but as a devoted husband, father and grandfather.
Online, grief quickly gave way to tribute in the language Norris helped popularise. Social media filled with one last wave of “Chuck Norris Facts”, the tongue-in-cheek myths that turned him into a digital demigod. The jokes wrote themselves, as always. Death did not take Norris, it finally dared to meet him.
Behind the humour, however, lies a formidable real-world legacy.
Long before the memes, Norris was Carlos Ray Norris, a decorated martial artist. After serving in the US Air Force, he rose to become a six-time world professional middleweight karate champion. His on-screen duel with Bruce Lee in Way of the Dragon remains one of cinema’s most iconic fight sequences.
Through the 1980s, he became the face of action cinema with films such as Missing in Action and The Delta Force, embodying a stoic, no-nonsense hero. In the 1990s, he reached living rooms worldwide as Cordell Walker in Walker, Texas Ranger, blending Western grit with martial arts flair.
Off-screen, his work carried equal weight. His foundation, Kickstart Kids, continues to teach martial arts to at-risk youth, focusing on discipline and self-worth. He also founded Chun Kuk Do, a martial arts system that trained thousands.
What made Norris unique was not just his strength, but his willingness to laugh at it. When the internet transformed him into an exaggerated symbol of invincibility, he embraced the joke. In doing so, he bridged generations, from cinema-goers to meme-makers.
His passing marks more than the loss of an action star. It signals the fading of a rare cultural crossover, where genuine athletic prowess met Hollywood heroism and early internet humour.
For many, remembering Chuck Norris means recalling a time when heroes were simple, punches were decisive and the internet still felt like a playground of shared jokes.
And if the myths are to be believed, this is not quite the end. It is simply Chuck Norris moving on to his next level.
