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David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros Discovery, is in line for a $700m (£525m) payday from the $110bn sale of the Hollywood studio to Paramount Skydance.
Zaslav could receive $34.2m in cash severance payments, $115.8m in vested stock and $517.2m in unvested share awards once the deal is complete, according to a filing from Warner Bros Discovery on Monday.
The chief executive of the studio is also expecting tax reimbursements of up to $335.4m.
The value of the payout, which was calculated on 11 March, will decrease over time if the deal takes longer to close and more shares vest. If the sale of the company gets pushed to 2027, the tax reimbursement would be zero, although Paramount has said it expects the deal to be completed in the third quarter of this year.
Zaslav, who is one of the best-paid executives in Hollywood, has already made $113m after selling shares in WBD this month.
Although Zaslav was widely criticised for his management of Warner Bros, which was created in 2022 through the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc, the value of his performance awards grew rapidly after the company became a takeover target.
Other executives in line for handsome payouts include JB Perrette, the head of WBD’s global streaming and games business, who could receive $142m in cash severance and equity. Gunnar Wiedenfels, WBD’s chief financial officer, is in line for $120m.
The filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission also reveal that WBD’s financial advisers have received bumper payments, with Allen & Co expected to get as much as $100m and JP Morgan about $90m.
In the filing, WBD said that these payouts were “estimates based on multiple assumptions” and that the actual amounts “may materially differ”.
Netflix struck a $82.7bn deal to buy Warner Bros in December 2025 but ultimately walked away, leaving Paramount the winner in the bidding war. The deal is funded by $47bn in equity and backed by the family of the chief executive, David Ellison, the son of the Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Paramount’s final acquisition price represents a nearly 150% premium compared with the Warner Bros share price in early September, before reports emerged that the business could be an acquisition target.
Zaslav’s possible huge payday comes even as analysts predict that Paramount will soon begin to cut jobs from its combined studios, TV and news operations.
After last year’s $8.4bn merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media – which created Paramount Skydance – Ellison said there would be $3bn in cost savings.
He has said that after the WBD takeover there will be a further $6bn in synergy savings, although he has tried to steer away from the prospect of mass job cuts.
“It’s important to note that the majority of our synergy target comes from non-labour sources among the efficiencies we have identified,” he told analysts earlier this month.
However, Netflix’s decision to walk away, which resulted in Paramount paying a $2.8bn fee to the streaming giant after its agreement was terminated, sparked grave concerns at the news channels CBS and the WBD-owned CNN.
Late last year, Paramount appointed Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion writer who launched an “anti-woke” commentary website, as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, where she has rapidly rung the changes.
On Sunday, WBD – which is behind the films Sinners and One Battle After Another – won 11 Oscars at the 98th Academy Awards, a tie for most wins with MGM’s record in 1959, Paramount in 1997 and New Line Cinema in 2003. The studio received 30 nominations overall.
The deal with Paramount has already secured antitrust approval from the US Department of Justice, although it is possible that one or more US state attorneys general could sue to block the deal, which could put the matter in front of a judge. It will also need approvals from antitrust officials in the UK and the EU.
A spokesperson for Warner Bros Discovery declined to comment.
