Hello Houston: The Commuter Cut
Oct 15, 2026 · 45 min · 11 segments
In today’s edition of “The Commuter Cut,” filmmaker and Texas Southern University professor Vincent Powell shares his thoughts on Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of…
Christina JewettGuestVincent PowellGuest
Tessa BarreraHost
Dominic Anthony WalshGuest
Ernie ManouseHost
A lot of folks are going to hear this story and say, what difference does it make to me? Two big giants are joining forces.
It's going to maybe less streaming services we have to subscribe to and everything will be there.
As a filmmaker, as a native Houstonian, as someone that's outside of the industry and very much so independent, the thing that gets missed a lot of times on the average consumer is what happens to the voice of the filmmaker.
And when an acquisition like this happens or a merger like this happens, the big guy gets to benefit from all of this IP that exists in their library.
And all of a sudden what's gonna happen is more remakes, more spinoffs, and what's gonna get muted and suppressed is original stories and original storytelling.
And in a day and age where everyone's looking at content creation and wanting more of the new, what we're going to get is more of the same.
And that's the unfortunate thing that's going to happen pop culture-wise with this.
But we're also seeing this happen in the economy with their stock shares plummeting.
I was out there a couple of weeks ago and seeing people who are afraid of being laid off and afraid of losing their jobs that have been at these staples like WB for years.
And now WB, someone who produced The Dark Knight and Harry Potter, gets to become this division or department within something broader that's way newer and more unexplored.
Couldn't you argue though, the opposite side of this is as a giant who's got all of this intellectual property that is wonderful and blockbuster, the movies, the big summer hits, that they have then an opportunity to do smaller voice things to help foster because they're gonna need those next filmmakers to make their next big blockbusters down the road.
And so actually coming all together centralizes the industry in a place where they can have farm leagues where they bring up the independent voices and look for the new stories.
You mean these billionaires who just took on $80 million worth of debt are going to say, you know what we need to do? Let's go pay the little guy because that's going to help us get out of this debt.
A lot of folks are going to hear this story and say, what difference does it make to me? Two big giants are joining forces.
It's going to maybe less streaming services we have to subscribe to and everything will be there.
As a filmmaker, as a native Houstonian, as someone that's outside of the industry and very much so independent, the thing that gets missed a lot of times on the average consumer is what happens to the voice of the filmmaker.
And when an acquisition like this happens or a merger like this happens, the big guy gets to benefit from all of this IP that exists in their library.
And all of a sudden what's gonna happen is more remakes, more spinoffs, and what's gonna get muted and suppressed is original stories and original storytelling.
And in a day and age where everyone's looking at content creation and wanting more of the new, what we're going to get is more of the same.
And that's the unfortunate thing that's going to happen pop culture-wise with this.
But we're also seeing this happen in the economy with their stock shares plummeting.
I was out there a couple of weeks ago and seeing people who are afraid of being laid off and afraid of losing their jobs that have been at these staples like WB for years.
And now WB, someone who produced The Dark Knight and Harry Potter, gets to become this division or department within something broader that's way newer and more unexplored.
Couldn't you argue though, the opposite side of this is as a giant who's got all of this intellectual property that is wonderful and blockbuster, the movies, the big summer hits, that they have then an opportunity to do smaller voice things to help foster because they're gonna need those next filmmakers to make their next big blockbusters down the road.
And so actually coming all together centralizes the industry in a place where they can have farm leagues where they bring up the independent voices and look for the new stories.
You mean these billionaires who just took on $80 million worth of debt are going to say, you know what we need to do? Let's go pay the little guy because that's going to help us get out of this debt.
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