One Bill for HBO Max and Paramount+ Starts in Early 2027

Skydance CEO David Ellison calls the bundle the first step toward folding the two streamers into a single service.

"The Pitt" and "Landman" are about to share a bill. HBO Max and Paramount+ will be sold together as one bundle starting in early 2027, Skydance CEO David Ellison confirmed Monday in a letter to shareholders, Deadline reported.

Speaking to analysts Monday, Ellison described the bundle as "our first step towards unifying the two services," according to Deadline. That makes it the first box packed in a move. The two streamers are headed for one address, and every show on both is getting sorted for the trip.

What the bundle will cost hasn't been announced. Ellison said Skydance would bring in new pricing gradually, guided by subscriber feedback, while the two services run side by side. Skydance counts 203 million subscribers across the pair. By Deadline's measure, that still trails Netflix by a wide margin and makes for a closer fight with Disney and Amazon Prime Video. TheWrap reported that this is also the last subscriber count Skydance plans to give: from now on it'll point to milestones like engagement instead.

The company says this move will be quicker than the last one. Folding Pluto TV into Paramount+ took about 18 months, the shareholder letter said, according to TheWrap. This time Skydance is aiming to line up the two services' back-end systems within a year of the merger's close, with help from a combined tech team and AI tools. That $110 billion deal closed in early October, Deadline reported.

The shows are already being sorted. Deadline reported Nov. 3 that executives were discussing whether some upcoming Paramount+ dramas could move to HBO. The logical candidates, by Deadline's account, include "Discretion," the legal thriller pairing Nicole Kidman with Elle Fanning, and "The Best of Us," Jeremy Strong's limited series about the first responders of 9/11. Sources stressed to Deadline that nothing had been decided and that every series slated for Paramount+ was staying there for now.

The people doing the sorting all came from HBO. Francesca Orsi, newly promoted to president of HBO drama series and films, is going through the Paramount+ drama slate with Sarah Aubrey, who now runs Paramount+ programming. Deadline reported that Orsi may end up overseeing Paramount+ dramas with an HBO feel whether or not they ever move.

The money for making those shows isn't shrinking yet. Skydance still expects to spend $30 billion a year on content, The Hollywood Reporter reported, though the company also sees some room to save there. The bigger savings target is elsewhere: at least $2.2 billion from overhead, real estate and facilities, including duplicated corporate jobs. Another $1.2 billion is supposed to come from merging the technology, the same work that has to stitch two apps into one.

Disney's bundle could get caught in the reshuffle too. HBO Max is already sold in a package with Disney+ and Hulu, and Skydance didn't say whether that deal survives, Variety reported. Ellison suggested the company would judge arrangements like that by whether they help shareholders.

His case for keeping the two services together is that their audiences skew differently. HBO Max and Paramount+ "over-index with different consumer segments and different parts of the country," Ellison told analysts, per Deadline. The shareholder letter also promised a new movie on the bundled services about every two weeks, drawn from 30 theatrical releases across Paramount and Warner Bros., TheWrap reported.

The bundle settles how viewers will pay. For the people making "Discretion" and "The Best of Us," it doesn't yet settle which of the two shelves their work lands on.

Source: Deadline, retrieved November 10, 2026. Other sources: TheWrap, Deadline (2), The Hollywood Reporter, Variety.