Skydance Orders Five Office Days a Week and Offers Buyouts Ahead of Layoffs

Skydance, the company formed when Paramount took over Warner Bros, has told its staff to work in the office five days a week. It is also offering voluntary buyouts ahead of planned layoffs.

The instruction came in an internal email from chief executive David Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz. It says the five-day in-office policy will apply across all of Skydance, according to Eurogamer. The company is calling its buyout programme a Voluntary Buyout, or VBO, according to Deadline.

Staff who cannot or will not follow the new rule may be eligible for a buyout, according to Business Insider. A buyout is a payment that offers an employee a way to leave the company, usually in return for agreeing to go. Taking one is voluntary, and the offer is made before any forced cuts.

Reuters first reported the buyout offer on 26 October 2026. The company is using it to cut costs after the Warner Bros merger.

The company was formed after Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros, according to Eurogamer. Its board includes former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who holds an advisory role. It also includes Laurene Powell and Bobby Kotick, the former chief executive of Activision.

Gamers have a stake here too. Skydance now includes several game studios: NetherRealm, which makes the Mortal Kombat fighting games, along with Portkey Games, Avalanche Software and Paramount Games Studios. The five-day rule applies to the whole company, so those studios are covered by it.

What happens next for individual staff depends on how many people accept buyouts and how the planned layoffs are carried out. Those details have not yet been set out in full. For now, the company has made two clear moves. It has asked people back into the office every weekday, and it has offered a way out to anyone who would rather not make that change.