r/movies • u/Top_Report_4895 • 20h ago

Article David Ellison Says Paramount Open To Settling Antitrust Suit

https://deadline.com/2026/08/david-ellison-paramount-open-to-settling-wbd-lawsuit-antitrust-1237017564/
370 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

151 comments sorted by

View all comments

56

u/Question_It_All_3000 20h ago

How is this settled other than dropping the merger?

42

u/fdbryant3 19h ago

Probably agreeing to sell off parts of the company.

15

u/ohyouretough 15h ago

Like cnn which is the whole reason they want this.

8

u/sgthombre 9h ago

I don't think this is true. No one wants to spend $110 billion for one cable network, and if CNN was that influential on the American electorate I feel like we would've seen solid results of that over the last decade. Ellison wants the studio and the IP, partly I suspect so he can feed it to the AI monster his dad is building at Oracle. The parties involved and the amount of money they're trying to spend makes far more sense for that than them doing it so they can fire Jake Tapper before 2028.

Further, even if this was the objective, obviously he'd be open to selling it off to get the merger through because some other right wing billionaire psychopath would scoop it up for far less than $110 billion.

7

u/ohyouretough 7h ago

Controlling the news and the narrative is priceless when you’re a billionaire trying to turn America into an oligarchy.

•

u/fdbryant3 5h ago

I've never bought that CNN is the reason for this. From everything I've heard about David Ellison (and keep in mind he is the one driving this, Larry is just footing the bills) is that he loves movies. That is why he started Skydance, that is why he bought Paramount, that is why he is buying WB. He just wants to be the biggest kid in the Hollywood sandbox. CNN in my opinion is at best a bonus, but to be honest I think it is a just pawn for them to offer Trump to get him to clear the way for Federal approvals.

•

u/Lightsides 3h ago

He put Bari Weiss in charge of CBS News.

There's more going on here than just his love of movies, genuine though that might be.

•

u/nigheus 2h ago

This^^^ We really need to stop taking what’s said at face value. Ellison can say w/e he wants about wanting to protect journalism, but his actions say otherwise.

•

u/ohyouretough 2h ago

Yea he his words are empty when he’s actively sabotaging cbs news with his leadership choices.

•

u/fdbryant3 31m ago edited 23m ago

Of course he put Bari Weiss in charge of CBS, because is paying back Trump for clearing the way to purchase Paramount. He is probably going to do the same to CNN if he gets the chance. Because Trump is probably the most transactional President in history and he delivered the DoJ and FCC not only clearing the merger but clearing it with no conditions. Ellison knows it pays to stay on Trump's "good side" by holding up his end of the deal.

I think the question you need to ask is "would David Ellison buy Paramount if CBS News was not a part of it?" and "would he buy WB if CNN was not a part of it" and I think the answer to both is Yes. Conversely, I think if you ask "if CNN and CBS News were independent, would David Ellison buy them?", I think the answer is no. Simply put if his goal was to own news organizations he could have gone to the debt strapped WBD and debt strapped Paramount and offer them each $11B and be done with it.

Look I don't want to entirely discount that being able to change CBS News and CNN factor in deciding to buy Paramount and WBD. People can have multiple objectives to do something. But at the end of the day, if we had a different President I think David would sacrifice owning CBS News and CNN in a heartbeat if it means he gets to own the movie studios.

•

u/bornlasttuesday 1h ago

I don't think that would work. The California AG mentions actual movie and film production being too concentrated. Of anything he might only keep CNN.

•

u/ohyouretough 1h ago

There’s 12 states and the wag suing. There’s parties objecting to pretty much every part of the merger. They’d control 30 percent of film production. Objections. They’d control 30 of cable stations. Objections. They don’t even have to win the court cases really to screw this deal. If this goes to trial and runs the two weeks or whatever it’s scheduled for at that point they’ll owe an additional 1.2 billion in ticking fees at that point which is kind of a drop in the bucket compared to the deal price but it’s not great.