David Ellison’s Threat to Move Paramount ‘Proves the Danger’ of Warner Merger, Writers Guild Says

The Writers Guild of America, which has sued to block the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, has released a statement condemning CEO David Ellison for his threat to move Paramount out of California if its attorney general, Rob Bonta, does not agree to a settlement of his own legal challenge alongside 11 other AGs against the merger. “By threatening to leave the state because it doesn’t want the government to enforce the law, Paramount further proves the danger of its outsized power over the industry and what that will mean for writers and the creative community,” the guild said on Tuesday. “This type of behavior is precisely why the merger should be blocked.” A representative for Paramount did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. The WGA’s lawsuit, filed a day after Bonta’s lawsuit, claims that the merger would be specifically harmful to writers, decreasing the number of major studios with whom writers could make deals to get their screenplays and TV show pitches produced. It is an argument that the WGA has made against past media mergers, including the one between Disney and 20th Century Fox in 2019, but this is the first time the union has taken it to the extent of legal action. The WGA’s lawsuit is separate from those of the AGs, which focuses on claims that the merger will reduce competitiveness in theatrical and cable TV markets and raise the level of concentration around the number of wide release and blockbuster films in theaters to unlawful levels. Paramount Skydance and Bonta are set to go to trial next March, but both have battled in the court of public opinion over the past few weeks. Paramount has rallied CEOs like Regal’s Eduardo Acuna and Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel to support the merger, while the company’s general counsel Makan Delrahim pushed back at claims by Bonta that Ellison’s consideration of moving Paramount was “blackmail” against the lawsuit. “When the delay starts costing, you know, after this merger has been approved from, I believe, 67 countries — European Union, China, Canada, Australia — let’s not forget about the DOJ — but all of them have reviewed it this way. But this state seems to view this merger in a different market. You have to take a look at the business environment and look to see what’s best for not only the community, the business, and ultimately, go to the place where you are wanted,” he said at a Politico event in Sacramento on Tuesday. Bonta was also present at Politico’s conference, saying he was open to negotiating structural remedies with Paramount to settle the lawsuit, but did not consider Paramount’s pledge to release 30 films annually in writing to be such a remedy. “We’ve heard a lot about what we call behavioral remedies … A promise to behave in a certain way in the future. A promise to make a certain amount of movies, for example, in a given year. That’s a behavioral remedy. Those are typically not enforceable in the way that we like. Not particularly good at solving the problem,” he said.