George Clooney was recently asked by GQ magazine about Paramount Pictures’ pending sale to Skydance. The two companies reached a sale agreement in early July worth a reported $8 billion. Clooney has a rich history with the studio. His 2017 directorial effort “Suburbicon” was released domestically by Paramount, while the studio was also behind some of his other titles like “Up in the Air,” which scored him an Oscar nomination for best actor.
“Paramount’s one of the great original studios,” Clooney said when the topic of Paramount being sold came up. “But some of it you just have no say in. Because the business, it’s all getting eaten up. It’s like everything — it’s all getting eaten up by big Walmarts and Amazons around the world. Our version of mom-and-pop shops in a small town is Paramount.”
As reported by Variety, Skydance and its partners will invest more than $8 billion in an effort to reinvigorate aspects of Paramount. Skydance said the deal has an enterprise value of $28 billion, with Skydance itself valued at $4.75 billion.
Paramount’s sale to Skydance will mark the latest sea change to Hollywood’s studio system. Clooney is right when he cites Amazon, which is the now owner of MGM Studios. Walmart, however, has yet to make a bid for a studio. In his GQ magazine interview, Clooney said changes at studios have also lessened Hollywood’s power to create movie stars.
“They haven’t developed stars the way the studio system used to,” Clooney said of Hollywood. “We kind of were at the very end of that, where you could work at a studio and do three or four films, and there was some plan to it. And I don’t think that’s necessarily the case any more. So it’s harder for you to sell somebody something on the back of a star.”
“But it’s a great time as a young actor,” Clooney added. “Because when I was a young actor, if you looked at the back of the ‘LA Times’ every Monday morning they had the 64 shows that were made. And of those 64 shows, if you’re actually on one of them, you’re trying to be in the top 20 to keep your show on the air. But that was it. And then the studios were doing five films a year. Now there are 600 shows, so there’s a lot more work for actors.”
Next up for Clooney is the crime thriller “Wolfs,” directed by Jon Watts. The film casts Clooney and Brad Pitt as rival fixers hired to do the same job. “Wolfs” is set to world premiere at the Venice Film Festival before streaming on Apple TV+ starting Sept. 27. The movie will have a one-week theatrical run beginning Sept. 20.