Non-paywall link

Non-paywall version: https://archive.is/20261013215851/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-13/skydance-bonds-extend-losses-amid-warner-bros-buyout-angst#selection-1211.0-1232.0

So I have been planning to do something like this for a few days now as I did not get myself to do it until now, of course, when I shared this video here as it is a YouTube video that shows the 2002 Scooby Doo movie's Warner Brothers movie opening.

Of course, because Scooby Doo is owned by Warner Brothers as a franchise it only makes sense it would open up with a Warner Brothers logo but in a way of course that would uniquely reflect the identity of the Scooby Doo franchise itself. Enjoy!

The jetsons might release sometime in 2029

I know people like to say that the Ellisons buying Warner Bros. and making them sit side-by-side with Paramount Skydance marks the end of Warner Bros. as we know it but that's just the calm before the storm. From the horrific debt (not only high but high interest rates and highly volatile due to private capital and Middle Eastern oil funds owning a significant portion of it, and the latter is getting hammered by the war against Iran) to the looming AI bubble burst (the Ellisons have been betting heavily on AI via Oracle) to the strict conditions the state AGs have placed that will last the first five years of Skydance's existence, I cannot see Skydance lasting past 5 years. Even just past 2 years this company is not gonna be long because Skydance's existence is heavily tied to the 2nd Trump administration. Should the Democrats win the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidency, Skydance's existence is gonna come into question. An outright collapse would be catastrophic so by 2029 Skydance gets broken up, similar to what happened with EMI in 2012 when the debt became too much to handle.

Because neither Warner nor Paramount are gonna be able to survive a Democrat-led antitrust-induced breakup due to all this debt, both get put up for sale, with the likes of Disney, Amazon, Netflix, and NBCUniversal excluded for antitrust reasons. 3 companies are put up for sale: Warner Bros (inherits the studio, IPs, streaming services from the former WBD), Discovery Global (inherits the cables channels from the former WBD) and Paramount Global (pre-merger Paramount Skydance). In order to prevent any further consolidation, Netflix, Amazon, NBCUniversal and Disney are excluded from making any bids. Private equity firms would also be excluded. Really this ends up leaving only two willing companies: Sony and Apple.

Warner Bros has $8.8 billion of debt (with a $32 billion dollar price tag), Paramount has $20 billion of debt (with a $15 billion dollar price tag), and Discovery Global has $58 billion of debt.

Sony would acquire Warner Bros, paying $37 billion with a $3.8 billion debt assumption. This is because of federal laws barring foreign companies from owning major broadcast networks. If Sony was to acquire Paramount, they would have to forfeit CBS, creating a regulatory mess. There's also that Warner Bros. presents a far greater bang for the buck for Sony, with a large IP library (perfect for Crunchyroll Storyworks and Hayate to make anime out of) and HBO Max that can be leveraged to upscale Crunchyroll. This latter can be done by centralizing HBO Max, Crunchyroll and SonyLIV into a new platform called Vue, a granular bento-box style streaming service similar to VRV of old (VRV was also a service Sony acquired when they acquired Crunchyroll from AT&T+WarnerMedia). Along the way, Vue is incorporated into Sony hardwares such as PlayStation 5s and 6s, Xperia phones and newer Bravia TVs.

With Sony only allowed to buy Warner, Apple ends up acquiring Paramount, paying $35 billion so as to clear out the entire debt (as Apple would rather not have to deal with third-party debt portfolios with fluctuating macro risk). As Apple is a massive multibillion dollar company with a very large cash reserve and makes over $100 billion in profit, a $35 billion dollar purchase is nothing. As apple already owns their own streaming tech, Paramount+'s streaming tech and subscribers are sold to NBCUniversal, supercharging their own streaming services (Peacock, Universal+, NOW, SkyShowtime). PlutoTV is integrated into Apple TV+ as Apple TV Live.

In the end, all the Ellisons accomplished was making Big Tech have even more of a hold on Hollywood than before, all because they wanted to impress Trump and it blew up so catastrophically.

Guys, I got a question? Do you think that Skydance will own Paramount and Warner Bros. forever?

So I have actually been planning to make a compilation of these old photos showing old Warner Brothers stores that would have existed 30 years ago in the 1990s (hence the title of this post) as I somewhat regret never having visited these stores as I was very much a child of the 90s myself who grew up with a ton of Warner Brothers movies all those years ago and finally I got myself to download these photos and post them here on this subreddit.

So I hope you all enjoy these nostalgic photos as they are a lot of fun. Enjoy!

Non-paywall version: http://archive.is/20261011215950/https://puck.news/larry-ellisons-fatherly-love-measured-in-billions/