Paramount Warns California: Stop Blocking Our Purchase of Warner Bros. Through Endless Lawfare Or We're Moving The Entire Multibillion Dollar Corporation to a Different State

California's taxation alone would make the move a good one -- Paramount pays an extra $500 million in taxes every year solely due to the excessive taxes California levies on them.

They have the idea they can tax and bully as much as they like because hey, what are you going to do, leave California?

They don't seem to have noticed that a ton of tax-rich corporations have already done just that.

David Ellison Reportedly Sets October 1 Deadline to Move Paramount Out of California Over Warner Bros. Lawsuit

The escalating battle over Paramount Skydance's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery may now threaten something much larger than the merger itself: Hollywood's century-old position as the center of the American entertainment industry. Paramount CEO David Ellison has reportedly told his top executives that he is prepared to move the company out of California if the state's attorney general, Rob Bonta, refuses to negotiate a settlement in the lawsuit seeking to block Paramount's roughly $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition.

And according to a bombshell new report from Puck's Matthew Belloni, Ellison has put an actual date on the threat.

October 1.

Belloni reports that Ellison recently gathered Paramount's 12-member Executive Leadership Team for a meeting on the Paramount lot, where the CEO laid out what could become one of the most consequential corporate relocations in Hollywood history.

Paramount would be the first mover here. Many other entertainment companies have surely considered leaving California, but they are stopped by fears that "it simply isn't done." Once Paramount proves it can be done, there would be a rush of companies leaving.

According to two people Belloni says have direct knowledge of the meeting, Ellison told the executives that Paramount Skydance would relocate to Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, or potentially another state if Bonta does not come to the negotiating table.

Even more significantly, Ellison reportedly said Paramount's board has already signed off on the move.

That transforms what previously sounded like political pressure into something considerably more concrete.

Ellison reportedly remains confident that Paramount will ultimately prevail against the lawsuit brought by California and 11 other states attempting to stop the Warner Bros. transaction.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta officially led the coalition of 12 Democrat attorneys general in filing the antitrust lawsuit last month, arguing that the transaction would reduce competition in the entertainment industry. The federal Justice Department, meanwhile, had already cleared the merger.

But Ellison reportedly told Paramount leadership that if the dispute is not resolved by October 1, the company will begin the process of leaving California.

The significance of that date isn't arbitrary.

Beginning after September 30, Paramount is expected to owe Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approximately $650 million per quarter, commonly described as roughly $7 million per day, while the deal remains unfinished. A federal judge recently scheduled the antitrust trial to begin March 2, 2027, potentially leaving Paramount responsible for more than $1 billion in additional payments before the case is resolved.

And if the Warner Bros. transaction ultimately collapses, Paramount could face a staggering $7 billion termination fee.

Those numbers dramatically change the economics of the standoff.

According to Belloni, Ellison told executives that rather than responding to those costs by slashing content spending or restructuring the company, relocation represents another option.

This wouldn't simply mean changing the address on Paramount's corporate headquarters.

Belloni reports that Ellison is developing a five-year plan under which the company's headquarters would move first, followed eventually by most studio jobs.

....

For decades, states including Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee have attempted to take pieces of Hollywood away from California. California may now be giving one of Hollywood's most powerful executives a reason to hand them something much bigger.

October 1 suddenly looks like one of the most important dates on Hollywood's calendar.

In other Failures of Hollywood news, Jessica Gao, the woke incompetent who was made the showrunner of "She-Hulk" as a pure DEI move, hasn't worked much since she spent $200 million on what ultimately turned out to be the World's Most Expensive Twitter Diss on the CHUDs.

She probably won't be given such power again.

She-Hulk Reportedly Had "Catastrophic" Test Screenings -- Then Jessica Gao Threatened to Quit Over Kevin Feige's Hat

While She-Hulk: Attorney at Law> was canceled after one season, the story behind its troubled production is becoming a cautionary tale for the ages.

Tatiana Maslany's short-lived run as Jennifer Walters received renewed attention after X user QQ shared an amusing observation about the series.

"The funniest story was how the creators originally conceived of She-Hulk as a case of the week type lawyer show," QQ wrote, "but then they got to the writer's room and they all said they don't know how to do that as if it was lost knowledge like the Roman aqueducts."

...

Edgar Award-winning author Daniel Friedman used the post as a launching point to summarize She-Hulk's behind-the-scenes drama, from reportedly "catastrophic" test screenings to the showrunner threatening to quit over Kevin Feige's hat.

How Jessica Gao Landed She-Hulk

In his post, which quickly went viral, Friedman explained that She-Hulk showrunner Jessica Gao wrote the famous "Pickle Rick" episode of the animated series Rick and Morty. However, she reportedly clashed with the show's co-creator, Dan Harmon, over the decision to cast Susan Sarandon as a character Gao had written as Asian.

I'm not sure she "wrote" the episode as most people would think of "writing" something. TV shows have a showrunner, who acts as the main writer, and a writers room, all of whom contribute jokes and "beats" to a story. A specific person is assigned to "write" it but they're largely compiling what came out of the writers room.

Who knows, maybe this was her idea and maybe she did write the episode mostly by herself.

But I don't think that's how TV writing actually works.

That's why they say she's the "credited writer." She got the credit, yeah, but we don't know how much she was responsible for.

Harmon subsequently agreed to host a podcast with Gao titled Whiting Wongs. Friedman described it as "40 hours of him apologizing and learning about racism."

The writing credit on the popular episode and the podcast appear to have raised Gao's profile. She subsequently landed the showrunner position on the upcoming She-Hulk, but Friedman wrote that "the production was extremely troubled."

"In addition to not staffing lawyers or legal-drama writers on the show who could deliver on the Ally McBeal in the MCU' pitch, the She-Hulk show required -- as described by Gao in interviews -- an extraordinary level of direct personal involvement and micromanagement from Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige," Friedman said.

Feige's attempts to course-correct throughout the process may not have been well received, although Gao reportedly described their professional relationship as supportive and collaborative. According to Friedman, test audience reactions to the series were "catastrophic," prompting Feige to intervene repeatedly and reshape the Disney+ series.

Any tensions surrounding the show's overall direction were mild compared to the bizarre dispute that reportedly erupted over the season finale.

Jennifer concludes the series by breaking through the Disney+ interface and confronting K.E.V.I.N., an artificial intelligence responsible for controlling the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The robot was an unmistakable parody of Feige, whose trademark wardrobe includes a baseball cap.

Gao wanted K.E.V.I.N. to wear a small black cap. Feige rejected the idea because he believed that placing a hat on a robot made no logical sense.

This is and always was a dumb idea and it's what makes me think she wasn't really the main writer on "Pickle Rick." This is the kind of thing a n00b thinks is funny.

Not only did she think this Basic Bitch idea was super-funny, she was actually willing to die on that hill. She actually quit the show to get this "joke" included.

"I was incensed, and in this big meeting, in front of like 20 people, I said, 'Kevin, if you don't let me put a hat on that robot, then I quit,'" Gao told The Hollywood Reporter.

Rather than backing down, Feige immediately appeared to accept her resignation.

"Thank you very much, Jessica," he replied. "You've done some great work for us, and we really appreciate everything."

Unfortunately a producer worked out a compromise where the stupid robot would have a mechanical brim over its eyes that looked sort of hat-like and she got to stay on the show.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:30 PM

| Access Comments