The Directors Guild of America and IATSE are urging California Attorney General Rob Bonta to settle his antitrust lawsuit with Paramount, arguing that prolonged uncertainty over the Warner Bros. Discovery merger is bad for the industry.
The two unions wrote a letter to Bonta and Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison on Wednesday, urging the two sides to come to an agreement that would include conditions to address concerns over harms to competition.
“While we have been consistent in our view that mergers, such as this one, historically offer few
benefits to workers, we are also particularly concerned about the negative impact a delay in the
decision regarding the proposed merger will have on our members and the industry at large,” the two unions wrote.
The letter puts the two unions at odds with the Writers Guild of America, which filed its own antitrust suit to try to block the merger. The antitrust case has created other divisions within the industry, as both Regal Cinemas and AMC Theatres have endorsed the merger, while the theater trade group — Cinema United — adamantly opposes it.
Bonta led a coalition of 12 states to sue to block the merger in July, arguing that the deal creates illegal consolidation in the basic cable and theatrical distribution markets. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin issued a temporary retraining order to pause the deal, and last week set a March 2 trial date, four months later than Paramount’s preferred schedule.
Ellison has been working to rally support for the deal within the industry, while also trying to bring pressure on Bonta to come to the negotiating table. Bonta has repeatedly said that he is not interested in “behavioral” remedies — such as a pledge to release 30 movies a year with a 45-day window — but is focused on a structural solution, which Paramount has thus far been unwilling to entertain.