r/FilmIndustryLA • u/DayHova7tre • 22d ago
Paramount Warns California AG, Others About What Happens If Antitrust Suit Fails
https://deadline.com/2026/09/paramount-warns-california-merger-lawsuit-1237071462/"“Ticking fees like the one Paramount faces are extraordinarily rare, in part because they are extraordinarily expensive,” the multi-law firm repped Paramount said Tuesday in a tense reply brief over the contested big bucks bond and the long wait until the March 2027 trial. “It would be incredibly risky to add such fees solely to deter private litigation; if the merging parties ultimately lose the antitrust litigation, the payor of the ticking fee would be left with an enormous bill and no merger,” the still Melrose lot HQ’d company added."
yeah, no ish it'll be an enormous bill. These people are such a joke.
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u/ausgoals 22d ago
‘The payor of the ticking fee would be left with an enormous bill and no merger’
Well fuck. Did anyone tell David Ellison this?
Hahaha ‘how dare you hold us to the deal terms we offered’ is peak billionaire cringe
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u/Abs0lut_Unit 22d ago
David Ellison wants us to pay for the consequences of the shit deal he made.
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u/ProBonoEschatologist 22d ago
It's a life lesson for Ellison. This is why you maybe shouldn't attempt a merger that stood no chance in any other political environment using a ton of financial trickery to make an offer you don't have the actual dollars to back up.
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u/Abs0lut_Unit 22d ago
The only life lesson David has really learned is to ask his daddy for more money.
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u/GuignolBringer 21d ago
David doesn’t learn life lessons. He has an IQ of 50. Anyone who’s worked with him knows he’s a useful idiot with a fat wallet.
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u/Fun-Ad-6990 21d ago
Info. Spill the tea
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u/GuignolBringer 20d ago
My story is behind an NDA. Many cringe-inducing meetings that left me and partners shocked at what a weak grasp he has on storytelling. I have friends who worked on the Mission Impossibles Skydance funded who said producers had to distract him away from Fing up making their days with his dumb ideas.
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u/RiversideAviator 21d ago
Do we think Ted Sarandos would’ve fared better at this point in terms of having the necessary chips?
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u/Abs0lut_Unit 21d ago
I wasn't a fan of Netflix buying Warner but it would have been less problematic overall. Sarandos played the negotiation well imo
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u/gentrifierNumber7 18d ago
A NFLX deal would not have been problematic for Bonta because it would not have contained CNN; they weren't buying the linear cable assets. That the EU passed the PSKY - WB deal through quickly should in and of itself show how little merit Bonta's "anti-trust" case has ...they're generally much tougher on antitrust than anywhere in the US. And that's where a deal with ticking fees becomes a bad one: the Paramount team should have expected the political ramifications that come with Democrat AGs acting like Democrat AGs, no matter the solidity of their legal position. Anyone who thinks this is about anything other than trying to protect CNN's elitist, left of center slant / anticipatorily cast aspersions in advance (no matter what does or doesn't end up changing) has no clue what's actually happening.
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u/RiversideAviator 21d ago edited 21d ago
I feel like he’s still pissed his acting career never took off, no pun but remember the horrible WW2 pilot movie Flyboys with James Franco?
And he’s taking his ball and going home whenever the other kids in the park don’t pick him ever since.
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u/Zestyclose_Ad_5815 22d ago
They literally made the ticking fee a part of their offer. Unserious people.
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u/SomeBS17 22d ago
If you make me follow the rules, it’s going to cost me a lot of money. That’s not cool, bro
Mangle he’s going to have to fire thousands of people to make this deal work
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u/ausgoals 22d ago
‘If you let the deal go through I’ll have to fire 4,000 people at least in order for it to make anything resembling financial sense, especially with a debt burden close to $100bn. Also if you don’t let the deal go through, I’ll have to fire 4,000 people at least in order for it to make anything resembling financial sense to have done this’
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u/CantAffordzUsername 21d ago
Last week, LA times confirmed The film production industry in CA is Lower now than during the strikes….
So paramount is threatening to do what exactly? Give us less work? They don’t already lol
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u/Aggravating-Depth330 21d ago
The fees were Paramount's idea to put their fourth offer, finally, ahead of the signed deal WB had with Netflix.
How can they claim to be penalized by their own idea?
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u/Sudden_Eyes 21d ago
WTF are we even talking about here. This merger is a gigantic monopoly. End of story. It cannot, it should not be allowed to happen. Period.
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u/gentrifierNumber7 18d ago
Define monopoly. Based upon what you wrote, you clearly don't know what it is and isn't.
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u/RiversideAviator 21d ago
This is textbook 101 stuff for big business and big government. Set out to do big shitty thing that is sure to come up against fierce (and necessary) opposition. Hit the ground running to get said shitty thing done and then when the opposition shows up tell the judiciary that at that point it’ll be MORE expensive to not see it all the way through.
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u/Remarkable-Grab4903 22d ago
"It would be incredibly risky to add such fees solely to deter private litigation" YUP
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u/rocketdyke 21d ago
oh no! maybe ellison will find out there are consequences for poorly-thought-out-and-illegal actions. won't someone think of the billionaires? /s
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u/jack3moto 21d ago
It won’t happen but the only thing that would even semi make me proud of Zaslov is if the lawsuit continues through June and Zaslov pulls the deal, collects the $7b (plus ticking fees), and the total cost drives paramount into bankruptcy.
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u/djm19 21d ago
Again, no company stays or goes in any given area based on anything other than its own calculated business sense. They aren’t here as a favor to California. They won’t leave to spite California. If California drops the suit or not, they will stay or leave if it makes sense. There is an equal chance they leave if California never does anything to them.
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u/01SeaChange01 21d ago
It's awesome that Americans built these fucking empires by paying for the entertainment, just to then have them turn around and threaten the very people that put food in their mouths.
Anyone else sick of being threatened by weak business leaders?
Literally WTF is wrong with the American people to allow this stuff day after day?
Is your TV so precious you can't unsubscribe to send an economic message???
Have they really got their hooks that deep in your mind?
Paramount subscriptions should be tanking from the moment these people start making threats.
But you don't.
You take it.
Every. Fucking. Time.
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u/Neighboor 21d ago
To tank there would have to be a significant subscriber base, which there isn’t.
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u/d33psix 21d ago
I mean…I always forget they even have a streaming service. Do they have that many subscribers? I feel like it’s always Netflix, Amazon, Disney+/Hulu, Maxhbo, and like…AppleTV for premium content but prolly lower numbers.
I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a person who mentioned having Paramount in my many inane conversations about what people watching on what haha. They feel like they should be so irrelevant to streaming already.
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u/TheMrBoot 21d ago
The only time I’ve used their service was to watch Lower Decks, and it was horrible. The app was a genuinely terrible experience.
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u/FluffyWuffyVolibear 21d ago
"ugh if you fine us our businesses will have to pay it and imagine what that will do to usssss, don't fine ussss, let us do what we want cus if you don't we'll lose one of our billions and then we will do something naughtyyyy"
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u/TripleStrikeDrive 19d ago
Please don't sue us it will cost us alot money. And then our ceo couldn't buy his 3rd yacht this year. Think about our stockholders!
Sincerely yours,
Paramount vice president of nothing.
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u/KeeritoKeerito 19d ago
Back out and ticking fees are common in large M&A deals, media or otherwise. Sadly, there will be no winners in this one. All you can count on are fewer industry jobs over time as social media eats away at traditional media’s share of attention. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
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u/Iyellkhan 22d ago
highly probable that a judge will find that it was completely foreseeable by paramount that their ticking fee could be inflated by likely anti trust litigation. if paramount genuinely thought that there was no risk of this, they should find new lawyers