Skydance’s first big streaming move since swallowing Warner Bros. Discovery is a ‘first step’ toward merging the two services.
Tulsa King and The White Lotus are about to share a subscription. Skydance, the company formed when Paramount Skydance completed its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery last month, said Monday it plans to sell Paramount+ and HBO Max together as a single bundle starting in early 2027.
“Starting in early 2027, consumers will be able to subscribe to both world-class streaming services at an even greater value,” the company said in a letter to shareholders, adding that it would share more details about the bundle and its “streaming roadmap” in the coming months. No price was announced.
The pairing brings together two services with very different personalities. HBO Max is the home of prestige television, from Game of Thrones and The Sopranos to Euphoria, House of the Dragon and the new DC series Lanterns, plus late-night staples from John Oliver and Bill Maher. Paramount+ leans broader, built on the CBS schedule, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, the Star Trek franchise and Taylor Sheridan’s empire of Yellowstone spinoffs, Landman and Lioness. On paper, the two libraries overlap very little, which is exactly the point.
Skydance CEO David Ellison told investors the services are complementary and draw heavily from different groups of subscribers in the U.S. He described the bundle as a “first step” toward a combined service down the line, effectively confirming what Hollywood has assumed since the deal closed: Paramount+ and HBO Max will eventually become one app.
That raises big questions for both brands. HBO has spent five decades building a reputation as the gold standard of television, and folding it into a mass-market service risks diluting the name, a concern we raised in our open letter to Ellison before the merger closed. The company also owns a third streamer it rarely talks about, Discovery+, whose future was not addressed in Monday’s announcement.
The other open question is what happens to HBO Max’s existing bundle with Disney+ and Hulu, launched in 2024 as one of the industry’s first major cross-company streaming packages. Skydance did not say whether that deal will survive, and Ellison said only that the company would review such arrangements to see whether they create value for shareholders. Subscribers who signed up for the Disney package may soon find HBO Max pulled toward a new home.
For consumers, the announcement is the clearest sign yet that the streaming wars are entering a consolidation phase. After years of new services launching and prices climbing, the biggest players are now merging libraries and bundling apps to compete with Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video. Whether Skydance can make one subscription feel like a deal, rather than just a bigger bill, will be the real test when pricing arrives next year.
