Paramount-WBD 2027 movie slate could dominate. Can it sustain?

Hollywood could soon have a new king of the box office.

With Paramount Skydance set to take over Warner Bros. Discovery, the combined film studios could dominate the theatrical slate.

Paramount CEO David Ellison has repeatedly promised not to pull back on production from either studio, with the goal of making 30 movies a year — 15 from Paramount and 15 from Warner Bros. The pending transaction, with an enterprise value of $111 billion, must still win regulatory approval both in the U.S. and in Europe. 

As the current 2027 slate stands, the combination of WBD and Paramount would result in 26 theatrical releases. However, additions to that calendar could come as soon as April at the annual CinemaCon conference in Las Vegas.

This behemoth of a slate is dominated by Warner Bros. titles, and it’s likely that those films would account for the bulk of ticket sales.

The studio is set to release films from major franchises including Godzilla-Kong, Superman, Batman, Minecraft, The Conjuring universe, Gremlins and Lord of the Rings.

Meanwhile, Paramount will have new entries for Sonic the Hedgehog, Paranormal Activity, A Quiet Place and its animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchises.

While Paramount’s franchises are popular and have generated solid ticket sales at the box office, its major releases in 2027 are smaller budget features. In fact, no film in any of those four franchises has generated more than $350 million globally, according to data from Comscore. But with smaller budgets, they don’t have to in order to be profitable.

Warner Bros.’ part of the slate, on the other hand, has bigger budget features that in the past have generated bigger box office returns. The most recent Godzilla-Kong film generated $572 million globally, 2025’s “The Conjuring: Last Rites” tallied nearly $500 million, “The Batman” took in $772 million and “A Minecraft Movie” nearly hit $1 billion.

“When you look at the films on the horizon from the PAR/WBD combo it is most impressive,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore, told CNBC. “And it may not be an overstatement to say that that slate could indeed have the potential to generate the biggest single studio box office in 2027.”

The Warner Bros. movie studio is a big part of why Ellison was so committed to winning over WBD’s board and its shareholders in a bidding war against Comcast and Netflix. Last year, Warner Bros. was the second-highest grossing studio at the domestic and global box office. Paramount was fifth.

Disney has long held the box office heavyweight title, although it was briefly overthrown in 2023 by Universal. Warner and Universal have jockeyed between second and third position, with Sony, Lionsgate and Paramount falling in line behind them.

“Doubling up two major slates adds to the potential for a very strong 2027, but nothing is ever certain when it comes to assuming a potential annual box office winner among studios,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “That’s especially true when the likes of Disney and Universal will each bring out their own heavy-hitters next year.”

Disney, in particular, has franchises like Ice Age, Star Wars, Frozen and Avengers on the docket for 2027.

Of course, franchise tentpoles are not always guaranteed to succeed at the box office, but the combined efforts of Paramount and Warner Bros. is a compelling offering for an industry that has been shrinking dramatically over the last decade.

“The notion of two major studio slates under one large umbrella in 2027 makes for an intriguing prospect while raising some fair speculation,” said Robbins. “We’ve seen the decline in theatrical output in the years following Disney’s acquisition of Fox, although caveats such as the pandemic and streaming explosion somewhat skew that comparison.”

A combined Paramount and Warner Bros. slate also faces some logistic issues. There are only 52 weekends on the calendar, and with 30 movies, the studio would need to strategically place its releases as not to cannibalize its own ticket sales.

Robbins noted that rival studios typically only go head-to-head on the same weekend or on back-to-back weekends if they are certain there isn’t a major overlap in audience demographics. It’s why there is often a horror movie set for release at the same time as a family-friendly animated feature, for example.

In contrast, Robbins noted, Paramount is scheduled to release “Sonic the Hedgehog 4” just one week ahead of Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla X Kong: Supernova.”

“It wouldn’t be a shock to see one of those shifted earlier or later on the calendar since the parent studio will want to minimize risk and do what’s best for the financial bottom line while remaining competitive,” he said.

And while Ellison has touted a 30-movie slate in the years after 2027, it’s unclear if that future is feasible.

Traditionally, when two major studios merge, the number of films released declines and there is a major wave of layoffs as consolidation weeds out redundancies. Not to mention, the marketing costs of big-budget films can be prohibitive.

“What will actually become normal for the newly unified house of Paramount and Warner remains to be seen,” Robbins said. “The longevity of such a slate in the years after 2027 will be challenging to produce, but never say never.”

Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango.