The Skydance-owned Paramount continues its breakneck dealmaking.
A little over a week after taking hold of the studio, the David Ellison-led executive squadron is in talks to make a movie output deal with Legendary Pictures, the producers of the Dune and Monsterverse movie franchises.
Legendary previously had output deals with Warner Bros and Sony Pictures, with its deal with Sony expiring at the end of last year and its Warners deal ending in late 2022.
Paramount had no comment.
Any deal with Legendary excludes the Godzilla-Kong movies as well as the Dune franchise, which lucratively remain parked at Warners. Its time at Sony wasn’t very fruitful; Biblical comedy The Book of Clarence bombed, as did the action comedy The Machine. Still, the company will soon go into production on a new version of Street Fighter for Sony.
Despite its lukewarm time at Sony, Legendary still makes hits outside of Dune and Monsterververse. A Minecraft Movie, released via Warners, is the year’s second-biggest Hollywood movie, grossing over $955 million worldwide. A sequel would be at Warners, which also has the Alejandro Iñárritu-directed Tom Cruise movie that it will release.
Perhaps the biggest title that Legendary has is Gundam, the very big-budget adaptation of the Japanese anime and manga centered on mecha warriors. That feature is to star Sydney Sweeney, who is working very closely with director Jim Mickle on the script as it aims to go into production next year.
It is unclear when the talks for this deal began. Sources said the dealmaking began earlier this spring, when Paramount was being run by co-CEO Brian Robbins.
“If you’re Paramount, you need lots of movies, and you need them quickly,” says one insider commenting on the studio rebuilding efforts.
The merger between Skydance and Paramount Global closed Aug, 7. Since then, the new entity has made a $7.7 billion deal for exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship for seven years and is in the midst of deep negotiations to bring the Duffer Bros., the sibling creators of Stranger Things, to the lot under a rich deal that would include a theatrical component.