Two 100-Year-Old Hollywood Studios Merge Into Company That Sounds Like a Trampoline Park

BURBANK, Calif. — Paramount and Warner Bros., two Hollywood studios with more than 200 years of combined history, finished merging Tuesday into a $110 billion company named Skydance, a name local parents say belongs on a strip-mall trampoline park with a waiver kiosk and a broken claw machine.

“I saw ‘Skydance’ on the news and booked a 90-minute open jump for Saturday,” said Tamsin Okafor-Bell, 41, of Glendale. “The man on the phone said the only package left was the entire HBO library and $87.5 billion in debt. I asked if that included grip socks. He put me on hold.”

The new company, run by chairman and CEO David Ellison, now controls The Godfather, Harry Potter, Batman, SpongeBob SquarePants, CNN and CBS News, which analysts expect will soon share one foam pit and a strict two-hour time limit.

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders received $31.01666668 per share in cash, a figure so precise that several investors assumed the last eight digits were a locker rental fee.

Rhonda Springfeld, executive director of the Indoor Rebound Recreation Council, said her members are furious. “We spent 20 years teaching Americans that ‘sky’ in a business name means dodgeball, a foam pit and a sticky table by the snack bar,” Springfeld said. “Now families are showing up at the Paramount gate asking which soundstage has the ninja course.”

Studio staff confirmed that the famous Warner Bros. water tower was wrapped in a padded safety net overnight and that a new sign outside Stage 16 reads, “No flips without a producer present.”

By late Tuesday afternoon, Okafor-Bell’s son had received a confirmation email for his seventh birthday party: 11 guests, two large pizzas and a three-picture deal.