Noah Wyle, the ER alum and star of HBO’s hit medical drama The Pitt, said he hopes Paramount chief David Ellison is “saber rattling” in his threat to move the iconic studio out of California as the company faces an ongoing lawsuit in its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Wyle revealed his thoughts about the ongoing standoff between California and Paramount at the HBO Max Emmy Nominee Celebration in Los Angeles on Sunday night.
“I hope this is saber rattling because I can’t think of anything that would less engender you to the population of this industry than to say you’re going to take Hollywood out of Hollywood,” he said. “But I’m an Angeleno, so I have a vested interest in that one.”
According to confirmation from Variety, Ellison is indeed “prepared to start moving Paramount out of California as soon as October unless the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is resolved through a settlement with the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.”
“Ellison told Paramount senior execs last week that he’s prepared to relocate Paramount (and Warner Bros., too, if the merger successfully closes) if Bonta does not agree to negotiate a settlement in the case,” Variety reported. “Ellison said the company will begin the process of exiting California starting Oct. 1 in the event that such talks have not started, and he told his team the Paramount Skydance board has approved the move.”
In the face of mounting pressure this past week, two of the biggest Hollywood unions, the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) and IATSE, urged Bonta to settle his lawsuit against Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros in an open letter addressed to both Bonta and Ellison.
“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 stood in stark contrast to the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which has backed the lawsuit. It was signed by Russell Hollander, national executive director of the DGA, and by Matthew Loeb, the international president of IATSE.
Xavier Becerra, the Democrat nominee for California governor, also called on Bonta to work out a settlement last week.
“I hope it settles before court. It is easier to stand in a conference room and settle than it is to stand in a courtroom. I say that having had to stand both in the conference room and in the courtroom. You get way more done in the conference room than you do in the courtroom,” he said.