Of Course: The 12 Left-Wing AGs Settle with Paramount/Skydance, Allowing the Merger, But Only With "Guardrails for CNN"

So this many-million-dollar lawsuit was all about keeping CNN a hard-left propaganda outlet.

Note that four of the left-wing AGs are dropping out of the communist coalition to demand further concessions, so I can't say this deal is actually struck quite yet.

Done! Paramount Settles Antitrust Suit, Set To Seal Deal For Warner Bros. Discovery

UPDATED WITH MORE DETAILS: Paramount has settled an antitrust lawsuit brought by a dozen state attorneys general led by California's Rob Bonta, the last obstacle to closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Deadline has confirmed.

Specifics are still scant but will come when the deal is formally announced later this morning. There will be concessions. Deadline hears that Paramount has agreed to some CNN guardrails, financial penalties linked to CEO David Ellison's 30 movies a year commitment, and some sort of separation of the studios for a period.

They mean they want Warner Bros. to remain separated from Paramount/Skydance for a period, which I heard was two years. Usually mergers involve reducing corporate staff by combining the old staff and firing the now-redundant staffers. So this is a move to keep those jobs for a period.

Terms of the deal are said to include an investment of $1.5 billion for home-grown film production and protecting and creating jobs, along with requirements for additional domestic production if the federal government approves tax incentives. The settlement also provides for a $47.5 million workforce development fund and obligation to honor existing collective bargaining agreements.

By promising to create "domestic" or "home grown" jobs, do they mean just in California, or the United States? I assume the latter, but I'm not sure.

News of settlement talks began trickling out on Friday but four of the AGs in the group were subsequently described as holding out for more concessions from Paramount. The attorneys general of New York, Connecticut, Minnesota [Keith Ellison] and Nevada came around late Sunday, sources tell Deadline, after assurances from California's Bonta that he would hold Paramount's "feet to the fire" to ensure the company stuck to its commitments. He had said previously he preferred structural remedies like asset sales to resolve antitrust issues, rather than behavioral remedies, which require monitoring. ...

"It's jobs, job, jobs, that's what this all about," a source close to power players in Sacramento told Deadline.

Of course, with $6 billion in cost savings promised to investors, expectations remain for significant layoffs, though those details will become more clear in the coming days and weeks.

Paramount shares rose 9% on the news. WBD gained 10%, trading at about $30.50. The deal calls for Paramount to take out Warner stockholders for $31 a share.

We don't know yet what "guardrails for CNN" have been agreed to. What I would guess is that Paramount/Skydance agreed to keep current CNN management on for some period. Maybe 3-5 years or something. It obviously can't be forever.

Update: So now we know -- Paramount/Skydance agreed to appoint a board of liberals to monitor the management of both CNN and CBS.

To keep out "bias."

Boy oh boy, wouldn't want any bias creeping in to CNN or CBS!

More on the Jake Tapper Permanent Employment Treaty:

Under the agreement, Bonta announced that Paramount is legally required to distribute at least 30 movies in theaters annually and will face a financial penalty if it fails to do so.

The company also committed to spending an additional $1.5 billion on film production over the next five years, with a guaranteed increase in the proportion of movies produced within the U.S., specifically benefiting Hollywood, according to Bonta.

Wait, so is the deal to produce "home grown" jobs in the US or in the Hollywood area? That seems to claim both or either.

Additionally, Paramount agreed to establish an independent board of journalists to oversee the newsrooms of CNN and CBS News to preserve editorial integrity and prevent consolidated corporate bias, Bonta said.

Independent journalists may include Dan Rather, John Harwood, Jim Sciutto, and Don Lemon. I'm making that up but I'm sure that's who the left has in mind.

Oh, and why not add Tater to the board, too!

Now that we've set the precedent that the government can sue media companies to end bias, when does Trump's AG Kash Patel put this new power into action?

The deranged partisan freaks like Mark Ruffalo demand that the deal be scuttled.

The primary group mobilizing opposition to the Paramount--Warner Bros. Discovery merger condemned the state attorneys general settlement of their antitrust lawsuit to block the transaction.

Just minutes before California Attorney General Rob Bonta was to appear at a press conference to announce the details of the settlement, the Block the Merger Coalition put out a statement calling the proposed resolution "a bad deal for the future of film, entertainment, independent journalism, and a strong democracy in this country."

"We are disappointed and angry that the interests of average Americans have been trampled to benefit oligarch billionaires," the group said.

Who the f*** do they think own major movie studios? Do they think they're mom-and-pop shops?

No, of course not, this is all stupid communist agit-prop.

In addition to demonstrations and online campaigns, the coalition helped organize an open letter of industry professionals opposing the transaction, including JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, David Fincher and Denis Villeneuve.

The only person there I wouldn't want to boycott is David Fincher, but I'm sure I can live without him.

As for Denis Villeneuve -- I know everyone's supposed to say he's great but I think he's boring as hell. His idea of making something feel "important" is just to make it slow and film it in low-key, low-energy way.

I didn't like Dune or Dune 2. I might actually like the David Lynch version more, but that might be too spicy a hot-take for me to commit to.

...

Mark Ruffalo, a prominent opponent of the merger, weighed in on X earlier on Monday. "Gavin Newsom hands huge win to Trump and his billionaire cronies," he wrote, referring to the governor's involvement in reaching a settlement.

In some Hollywood: Shit or Garbage? material: the Resident Evil movie is supposedly the first good Resident Evil movie. What I've heard critics say is that it's not based on any of the actual characters from the game -- it has its own original characters -- but it is based on the scenarios of the game, including puzzle-like levels, I mean movie scenes, the main character has to figure his way through.

In other words, the world of Resident Evil is fairly well adapted, while it doesn't include any of the characters featured in the game.

Which is an interesting way of being both very faithful to the material while also ignoring much of the material.

Multiple reviews say, however, that it ends abruptly and that the climax is rushed.

It's directed by the guy who did Weapons so I'm inclined to think it's pretty good. I dunno. I'll wait for it to be on TV.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:40 PM

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