With a planned merger with Warner Bros on hold, Paramount has said it could move its studio operations out of California if the deal doesn’t close by late September. Update: We wouldn’t dare accuse a rich, powerful CEO of sulking, but Paramount’s David Ellison has said he’s willing to resort to a drastic location shift ... Paramount Warner Bros deal | David Ellison threatens to move studio out of California if deal doesn’t happen
With a planned merger with Warner Bros on hold, Paramount has said it could move its studio operations out of California if the deal doesn’t close by late September.
Update: We wouldn’t dare accuse a rich, powerful CEO of sulking, but Paramount’s David Ellison has said he’s willing to resort to a drastic location shift if the Paramount-Warner merger doesn’t happen within the next few months.
Paramount’s planned takeover of Warner Bros is currently at a standstill, as a collective of 12 US states, led by California attorney general Rob Bonta, sued to block the deal from taking place. The merger is now on hold while the case is studied further.
In response, Ellison has said he plans to move Paramount out of California if the merger doesn’t complete before the 30th September, per Variety.
Bonta condemned the plans as an “attempt to blackmail the state into letting a deal through.
In an attempt to assuage concerns that the merging of two major studios could lead to less competition, fewer jobs and a shrinking annual slate of films for cinemas to exhibit, Ellison previously pledged that the conjoined ParaWarner will make 30 films per year. We’re not sure how feasible that will be if the studio’s based on a science park in Delaware.
We’ll bring you more on late capitalism’s ongoing katamari effect as it comes in.
Our previous story follows…
14th June 2026: Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros may have hit a bump in the road. A collective of 12 states across America are suing Paramount in an effort to prevent the deal from going ahead – their argument being that the merger will result in fewer films being released and, with less competition, rising costs for customers.
The move comes weeks after the US Justice Department gave the $110bn deal its approval. According to Deadline, a temporary restraining order has now been requested by those states to prevent the transaction from taking place. Without it, they argue, the merger could be completed within the next week.
“After this merger, for every dollar generated by wide-release theatrical films and basic cable channels in this country, the combined company will pocket more than a quarter,” the states’ lawsuit reads. “This merger, in short, would create a media behemoth.”
The lawsuit was filed on Monday by California attorney general Rob Bonta; the other states opposing the merger are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.
Last month, the Department of Justice said that a merged Paramount-Warner Bros would result in more jobs and be of benefit to consumers – essentially, the opposite of what Bonta and the 11 other attorneys general are arguing in their lawsuit.
Paramount has said in a statement that the US states’ lawyers are “wrong on both the facts and the law,” adding that it will “vigorously defend” the transaction.
The suit comes on the heels of a Semafor report that Paramount is mulling the possibility of moving its operations out of California if the state tries to block the deal. If it opts to make such a move, it probably won’t be to New York or the other states in the coalition.
Paramount’s Warner buyout is also unpopular in Hollywood, where over 1,000 actors and filmmakers have signed an open letter that expresses similar fears to the US states’ lawsuit.
“Our industry is already under severe strain, in large part due to prior waves of consolidation,” the letter, published in April. reads. “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. 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.”
Will this latest legal battle cause a late upset for Paramount, or is it merely delaying the inevitable? Recent history records that billionaire CEOs tend to get their own way in these situations. Though if you’re into your Schadenfreude, you can take comfort in that other corporations have purchased Warner Bros in the past and discovered it to be a financial monkey paw.
We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
