Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546058
6 FALL 2026 The Big Five Four? The Big Five Four? In the beginning, there were eight. When Hollywood was first established, it was nothing more than a quiet, residential town. But soon, filmmakers escaping Thomas Edison's motion picture film patent fees and drawn in by the always sunny weather, arrived with hopes and dreams. By 1911, the first studio popped up on Sunset Boulevard, and by 1915, many major studios had relocated from the East Coast to Hollywood. By the late 1920s during the Golden Age of Hollywood, filmmaking was dominated by the Big Five (Fox, MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, and RKO) and the Little Three (Universal, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists), creating the origins of the modern studio system. Over the decades, as the power dynamics among the studios shifted, eight became seven, then six, then finally, in 2019, with Disney's acquisition of Fox, became the Big Five (Sony, Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, and Paramount) that we know today. And now, with the pending sale of Warner Bros. to Paramount, the last two legacy studios of the original Big Five, the studio system is once again in danger of shrinking, reducing competition and production of independent, mid- budget films. So how did we get here? Warner Bros. was founded in 1923 and quickly became a major film studio. In 1966, Jack Warner sold his controlling shares of the company to Seven Arts Productions, and that merged company was soon sold to Kinney National Service, which eventually spun off the media portions of its A C T I V I S M By Kathleen Qiu Before the ink was even dry on the deal, in October 2025, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was exploring the option of another sale, and a frenzied battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance to acquire the embattled studio soon followed, with Paramount declared the final victor (pending regulatory approval, of course) earlier this year. Not, of course, that this would solve the debt problem. Paramount's bid is backed by $54 billion bank loan, which only increases Warner Bros.' debt and begs the question, what's the point? The obvious point is the consolidation of media power and intellectual property. In the times of the streaming wars, a gigantic library is key to attracting and keeping customers and making more money. Warner Bros. has a huge library, and its streaming platform, HBO Max, is a known quantity and the fourth most subscribed streaming service, making it an attractive property even with its mountain of debt. On top of that, much of Warner Bros.' IP has already proven itself and can be rebooted or spun off for guaranteed billions. See the latest Harry Potter reboot, the latest Big Bang Theory spinoff, the latest Game of Thrones spinoff, and so on and so forth. The merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery not only puts all these properties in the hands of Paramount, but also creates a new media conglomerate with unprecedented vertical and horizontal integrations, limiting competition and preventing new work from happening. When Disney bought Fox a decade company and rebranded to Warner Communications in 1972. In 1990, Warner Communications merged with Time to form Time Warner, a massive entertainment and media conglomeration that came crashing down in 2001 with a merger with AOL, known as "the worst merger in history." Then, with mountains of debt piling up, and a decade of downsizing and spinoffs, Time Warner was left with only Warner Bros., HBO, the Turner network of channels, and a sale to AT&T in 2016. This merger did nothing to solve Warner Bros.' problems and it was once again spun off and merged to Discovery Media in 2022. This new company was left with $53 billion in debt and no easy way out, which brings us to today and a desperate need for cash. Meanwhile, Paramount, which was founded in 1916, fell into decline in the 1950s when it lost its theater chain due to the landmark antitrust case, United States vs. Paramount Pictures, Inc. in 1948. In 1966, after years of selling off assets in a bid to stay afloat, Paramount was finally sold to Gulf and Western Industries and reincorporated as Paramount Television. In 1993, Gulf and Western merged with Viacom, then owned by National Amusements. By 2023, Paramount was struggling with debt and fighting to stay competitive in the entertainment industry, and announced it was seeking merger and acquisition options, which Skydance Media jumped at the chance for, finalizing their merger to become Paramount Skydance in August of 2025.