The Form 4 filed for Zaslav with a period of report of 2026-10-06 records dispositions to the issuer of WBD Series A common stock at $31.0167 per share, in blocks including 1,500,000 and 1,570,772 shares, with holdings stepping down from the millions of shares toward zero, and it states that the reporting person is no longer subject to Section 16. The accompanying footnotes on the officer Form 4s filed for the same effective time state that on October 6, 2026, pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated February 27, 2026 among Warner Bros. Discovery, Skydance Corporation (formerly Paramount Skydance Corporation) and Prince Sub Inc., the merger sub merged into WBD, with WBD surviving as a wholly owned subsidiary. Option lines on the companion filings show employee stock options with exercise prices ranging from $8.67 to $58.18 disposed of to the issuer at the same effective time.

Variety, reading that filing, reports the aggregate: Zaslav will receive a total of $606.1 million for shares held in the company, including restricted stock units that converted into the right to receive an amount in cash, effective Oct. 6 with the closing of the Paramount-WBD merger, according to an SEC filing Thursday . The total includes stock options worth $381.7 million, which is subject to withholding taxes, as is the amount from the RSUs . Of that total, stock options accounted for about $381.7 million and shares for around $224.4 million . The same reporting notes that Zaslav also had 14.98 million stock options that became worthless post-merger because they had exercise prices that exceeded the deal's $31.0167/share acquisition price , and that he sold roughly $195 million in WBD stock ahead of the merger closing, across March, July and August, under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan .

On the deal itself: Paramount Skydance completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, rebranded as Skydance, with Warner Bros. shareholders receiving the cash equivalent of roughly $31 per share .

Separately, the merger proxy's golden parachute table, as reported in April 2026, put Zaslav's merger-related compensation on a different and larger basis: $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, $335.4 million in tax reimbursements, and $44,195 in continued health coverage reimbursement benefits , which ISS described as over $886 million, one of the highest golden parachute estimates ever observed . A majority of WBD shareholders voted against the compensation packages for Zaslav and other named executive officers in connection with the Paramount merger , a say-on-golden-parachute vote that is advisory. On the post's secondary figure, Variety reported in 2026 that Zaslav's pay more than tripled in 2025 to $165 million .