Paramount and Skydance representatives will sit down with the California Attorney General’s office on Monday to discuss resolving the states’ antitrust challenge to the $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The meeting signals the first concrete movement toward a negotiated exit since a federal judge in Oakland paused the combination pending a March trial.
The state’s position hasn’t shifted
Attorney General Rob Bonta, who spearheaded a 12-state complaint in July, has maintained that behavioral promises, film slates, theatrical windows, cannot be policed effectively. His office argues the tie-up would shrink competition in both theatrical distribution and basic cable by merging two of the five remaining legacy studios and two of the three largest cable programmers. Bonta has said publicly he prefers a boardroom resolution, but only if structural remedies are on the table.
Paramount’s offer so far
The company has pledged 30 theatrical releases per year for three years, each with a minimum 45-day exclusive window. Bonta’s team has dismissed that framework as unenforceable in practice. A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment on the upcoming session.
Court-ordered mediation looms
Separately, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin has ordered the parties to propose two magistrate judges for formal mediation by Wednesday. The Writers Guild of America, which filed its own suit and is bound by the same stipulation keeping the merger on ice, would need to sign off on any global settlement. A WGA spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
Political pressure builds
Governor Gavin Newsom echoed Bonta’s boardroom preference on Friday, while the Directors Guild, IATSE, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the theater-chain group Cinema United have all urged a deal. Whether that chorus translates into structural concessions, asset sales, programming firewalls, or cable-network divestitures, remains the open question before Monday’s meeting.