Hollywood actors and filmmakers have been working to scrap Paramount Skydance’s potential $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Hollywood celebrities, including actor Mark Ruffalo and filmmaker Alex Gibney, met with California Attorney General Rob Bonta seeking to convince him to scuttle the planned merger, The New York Times reported on May 26. Netflix dropped its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery in February after Paramount upped the ante and offered $31 per share, which Warner Bros. called a “superior proposal,” according to The Washington Post.
The meeting came after Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF)’s Norm Eisen, a former ambassador for the Obama administration, released a letter opposing the merger that received the signatures of over 1,000 actors, writers and directors, The New York Times reported in April.
“We have witnessed a steep decline in the number of films produced and released, alongside a narrowing of the kinds of stories that are financed and distributed,” the letter stated. “Increasingly, a small number of powerful entities determine what gets made — and on what terms — leaving creators and independent businesses with fewer viable paths to sustain their work.”
Eisen organized the meeting between Ruffalo and Bonta, according to The New York Times. “Behavioral remedies have historically proven to be hard to enforce,” Bonta said during the meeting, The New York Times reported. “We don’t want to make that same mistake again here. So it could be a block, it could be behavioral remedies backed by structural remedies. Again, we haven’t decided what we’re going to do.”
Paramount responded by saying the deal “is fundamentally pro-competitive,” and the merged company would allow it to compete with “global streaming platforms such as Netflix and large tech companies.” Paramount argued the merger would bolster competition for premium content and “help revitalize and reinforce theatrical exhibition.”
“The Paramount acquisition of Warner Brothers remains an active investigation, and we do not have any updates to share at this time,” a spokesperson for Bonta’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The film and entertainment industry in California not only has historical importance to our state, it also is a critical sector that buoys the state’s economy of California and touches the lives of Americans daily,” Bonta stated in a press release in February. “The proposed Warner Brothers transactions must receive a full and robust review, and California is taking a very close look. We are committed to fighting market consolidation that we find unlawful.”
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Paramount CEO David Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is reportedly a close ally of President Donald Trump. Before Paramount outbid Netflix, Trump said Netflix’s bid “could be a problem.”
Netflix ended its efforts to acquire Warner Bros. after Paramount offered a higher bid following months of attempting to persuade the company’s board to accept their offer.
“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive,” Netflix wrote in a Feb.26 statement.
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