It's finally over; Skydance to merge with Paramount in early 2025

Star Trek has officially landed new owners and I for one welcome our new Skydance overlords. After a contentious negotiating period between Paramount Global and Skydance, which saw the latter outfit propose an $8 billion merger between the two companies. Paramount agreed to the deal, but concerns arose when Edgar Bronfman Jr. proposed a $5 billion outright purchase of Paramount.

Paramount Global extended its "go-shop" clause in its negotiations, to try and attempt to find another serious buyer. This didn't sit well with Skydance, as a deal had been in place that they would only have so many days to try and find someone else willing to buy the company. Paramount extended the period against the language in the contract, causing a lot of friction between Paramount and Skydance.

It got so bad that Skydance admitted they were thinking of pulling out of the deal. It all amounted to a lot of rich people being upset about petty drama and couch change (for them), but thankfully cooler heads prevailed and a deal is now set in place.

Skydance will purchase the controlling shares of the company and then merge with Paramount Global starting in early 2025. Big changes are expected to come from this, possibly involving Paramount+. There are rumors that one of the things Skydance wanted to do was shutter the streaming service and engage in conversations with rival streamers to move their catalog over to them.

That's not all, as many believe the merger and influx of new cash into the studios, will allow franchises like Star Trek to not only continue as planned but possibly expand their footprint. Considering Skydance's film history, it's also very likely that one of the things that gets worked out is the future of the movie franchise. Something that has been in limbo for a few years now.

This may all end up being very bad for Star Trek if we're being honest. We're not sure how a merger of this size, with so much money on the line, will affect things. Though, we're optimistic that this new outfit has a better idea of what they're doing than the last one. We're hopeful that with change comes success.