On Friday Warner Bros film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy waited for a phone call informing them of their future employment. 

It came in the morning from Skydance CEO David Ellison confirming what they had read online the previous night in an anonymous report: that they would not be joining the new merged Warner-Paramount studio. That their upcoming slate of a half-dozen releases, including “Batman 2” and “Gremlins 3,” would be handled by someone else. And that their services were no longer needed. 

It was certainly an inelegant way to handle the exit of two studio chiefs who had ushered Warner Bros to glory at the Academy Awards earlier this year, with the triumph of “One Battle After Another” winning Best Picture and Michael B. Jordan taking Best Actor for critical darling “Sinners,” capped off by a standout 2025 at the box office. 

All day the internet was feeding on the unconfirmed (until now) report of their exit by Puck, with Paramount (now renamed Skydance) declining to comment. The executives were left dangling in the news cycle, increasingly angry at the slight. 

Ellison called each of the executives, separately, to inform them in a tense exchange. According to knowledgeable individuals, he told them that the merged companies have a ton of debt and needed to restructure in order to meet those obligations. That, of course, is no secret to anyone. The combined entity is expected to carry around $80 billion in total debt. 

They were not offered a production deal. Their film slates will be handled for the moment by their deputies, Jesse Ehrman and Mike Ireland, who are currently the Presidents of Production. Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg are co-chairs of Paramount Pictures and expected to lead the merged film studios. 

Both De Luca and Abdy were livid at the way their exit was handled, according to individuals with knowledge of their reaction. Abdy was particularly offended and told the mogul with some bitterness: “Good luck to you. I left you 39 movies.” 

Warner’s go-forward film slate is packed with likely blockbusters, including “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” “The Batman Part II,” “Gremlins 3” and “A Minecraft Movie Squared.”

Under De Luca and Abdy, Warner Bros. had a spectacular year in 2025, with two films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” ultimately winning the top prize, and multiple box office hits, including “A Minecraft Movie.” 

But 2026 has been much tougher with movies like “Supergirl” and “The Bride!” failing to motivate audiences. The reported decision comes ahead of an expected underwhelming domestic opening weekend for the Tom Cruise-led film, “Digger,” which is predicted to bring in $12 million to $15 million.

Abdy and De Luca had no comment for this story. Paramount/ Skydance declined to comment. 

The executives’ last day is expected to be when the two companies complete their merger on Tuesday. 

The Justice Department argued that Donald Trump can legally ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House because he determined that they didn’t meet the “minimum requirements of professionalism.”

Last month, a federal judge granted the three outlets a temporary restraining order that forced the White House to reinstate dozens of their reporters’ hard passes. The outlets are now asking the judge to extend that 14-day order for a longer term via a preliminary injunction, claiming that Trump’s ban is a violation of their First and Fifth amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, has said that he is bound by the precedent set in In a 1977 D.C. Circuit opinion, Sherrill vs. Knight, in which the judges ruled that “the protection afforded newsgathering under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press requires that this access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.”

In a court filing on Friday, the DOJ claimed that the Sherrill case still would allow for the president to restrict the three outlets from accessing the White House grounds because the White House has a “compelling interest.”

The DOJ lawyers claimed that the Sherrill decision does not “prevent the President from concluding that bona fide journalists would identify sources instead of relying on anonymous sources, commit to factual accuracy, and provide the White House an opportunity to comment, rather than ‘perform their duties in a way that … interfere[s] with the White House’s daily operations.’ …At a bare minimum, it is a significant violation of decorum to publish classified and sensitive national security information.”

The news outlets’ legal team has rejected that assertion, writing in a filing earlier this week that Trump’s “statements also make clear he implemented the ban to coerce more favorable coverage from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, and to deter other journalists and news organizations from newsgathering and reporting that the President might view as negative. And his administration has continued to retaliate against Plaintiffs even after the temporary restraining order, only underscoring that Defendants’ motive is to punish and chill journalism they dislike.”

Even as access to the White House grounds has been reinstated, the White House has continued to restrict CNN from coverage of TV pool assignments, including travel with Trump on Air Force One.

The outlets’ lawyers, led by Theodore Boutrous Jr., also noted that Trump and other White House officials “overlooked that the First Amendment protects reporting on matters affecting national security.”

Kelly has set a hearing for Thursday on the news outlets’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

In granting a TRO, Kelly concluded that the White House failed to provide due process to the news outlets.

The DOJ has pointed to letters sent to the outlets as evidence that they were given due process. But those letters were sent on Sept. 22, four days after Trump’s ban was started.

The judge also has noted that some of the objectionable stories cited by the DOJ do not have to do with national security. Kelly wrote in his order that “even the justifications provided to Plaintiffs after this case was filed are ambiguous about the true purpose of the revocations: while Defendants’ letters to Plaintiffs mention national security concerns, they purport to identify reporting that ‘threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods’ leaving open the possibility that all the stories fall into the later bucket, rather than the former.”

In New York Film Festival Centerpiece “Behemoth!,” writer/director Tony Gilroy has created a delicately calibrated film about a cellist (Pedro Pascal) in a midlife crisis. The movie played well at a packed Alice Tully Hall, and afterparty revelers were mildly upbeat.

Critics approve (see Metascore) of Pascal’s quiet, almost silent, reactive performance — he carries the movie, appearing in every scene — but the Best Actor category is so crowded that it will be tough for Pascal, who has never been nominated, to squeak past louder thespians like Matt Damon (“The Odyssey”), John Malkovich (“Wild Horse Nine”), Andrew Scott (“Elsinore”), Ryan Gosling (“Project Hail Mary”), and John Turturro (“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York”). So far, Pascal has been recognized for his television work in HBO’s “The Last of Us.” “Behemoth!” marks his most ambitious lead film role to date.

The movie’s strength is its innovative music structure, as Pascal’s cellist plays different movie scores in a series of Hollywood sessions that throw his memories back in time. Gilroy deployed nine composers, including James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, and Alan Silvestri, whom he calls The Behemoth! Collective. Academy rules call for no more than three composers to be entered for consideration for a movie’s Original Score. But Searchlight hopes the music committee will consider accepting the one Collective in this case.

The music branch was flexible about the “K-Pop Demon Hunters” multiple songwriters, who shared their one Oscar. But the “Birdman” drumming score was disqualified as not being music. The two composers on “Arrival,” Max Richter and Jóhann Jóhannsson, were disqualified. But later on, Richter was allowed to include both new material and old on “Hamnet.”

Searchlight will have no issues submitting the Lukas Frank song “Your God Is Sleeping.”

And “Andor” showrunner and “Michael Clayton” Original Screenplay and Directing nominee Gilroy, respected by the industry for his writing prowess, could be in the running for Original Screenplay. It defines the term.

Searchlight Pictures opens “Behemoth!” starting December 4.