Mash-Up of Paramount and Warner Bros. Will Be Called Skydance

As Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros.Discovery neared completion in recent months, the entertainment trade press tried out a few new names for the combined company.

WarnerMount? ParaBros?Now, just days before the combined company debuts on Oct.6, the new name has been revealed: Skydance.David Ellison, the tech scion in charge of the combined company, announced the name on Friday in his first post on the social network X that included a video mash-up of iconic films from both studios.The name is a homage to Mr.

Ellison’s love of aviation, a passion he shares with his father, Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder who is backing the $111 billion deal for Warner Bros.It also shares the name of Mr.

Ellison’s original entertainment company, formed in 2006, which has produced big-budget blockbusters like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.”In his post, Mr.Ellison said that he would preserve the names of the companies’ iconic studios — Warner Bros.

and Paramount Pictures.“We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one,” he wrote.“Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros.

— and all our extraordinary brands — to remain in the spotlight.”In recent decades, mergers of media companies typically resulted in a portmanteau of the combined companies’ names: AOL Time Warner, for the disastrous fusion of old-line media and dial-up internet; Warner Bros.Discovery, the entity that united reality TV with prestige TV; ViacomCBS, the original name for the two halves of Sumner Redstone’s media empire.When Mr.

Ellison acquired Paramount, he continued the trend, christening the new entity Paramount: a Skydance Corporation.In choosing a simpler name, Mr.Ellison is going in a different direction.The name is one of the biggest details Mr.

Ellison had to decide on before the deal closes.Already, he ha...