Bob Bakish stepped down from his role as the CEO of Paramount Global on Monday, April 29, to… the Mission: Impossible theme song? Yeah, pretty much. During a 9-minute long earnings call where Paramount formally announced Bakish’s departure from the company, they allegedly refused questions and then “played the Mission: Impossible song on a loop,†reports Anna Nicolaou of Financial Times. This change in leadership was teased on Saturday amid tension with National Amusements’s Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount Global and is reportedly unhappy with Bakish’s leadership. He has been with the company since 1997 and became Viacom’s CEO in 2016, maintaining his role through the Viacom CBS merger of 2019.
Bakish will be replaced by three executives: George Cheeks, the CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, the CEO of Showtime, MTV Entertainment Studios, and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, the CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.
Paramount has reportedly been trying to find someone to buy the company for quite a while now, which begs the most important question of all: Will they still get custody of Tom Cruise after the divorce? Fear not, since according to CNBC, Skydance Media, who produced Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, has sent over a “best and final†offer to buy all or part of Paramount. Chop chop, movie execs. Top Gun 3 is on the line.