Throughout the tortured months leading up to the sealing of the Skydance-Paramount deal, Hollywood insiders rooted for an Ellison père-et-fils victory. They didn’t want Paramount to be dismantled by private equity sharks, and they certainly didn’t want to lose another legacy studio the way Fox all but disappeared after Disney acquired most of it in 2019. But if a number of major Hollywood players are right, the Ellison victory might lead to an ironic twist: The newly combined company, these people believe, will also take a run at acquiring Warner Bros. One even told me he definitely knows that this is Ellisons’ intention. “Paramount’s just not big enough to compete,” another Hollywood insider said.