As we discussed, last week two Davids joined forces to become Goliath. The Davids are Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance and Trump friend, and Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery and prolific Looney Tunes hater. Zaslav spent nearly three months rejecting Ellison’s hostile takeover tantrums, instead standing strong with Netflix’s $82.7 billion/$28 a share offer. Then in a matter of 48 hours, the WBD Board voted in favor of Paramount’s $110 billion/$31 a share bid and Netflix flatly declined to prepare a counteroffer, instead swiftly accepting the $2.8 billion break up fee owed to them from WBD that Paramount covered. I would love to collect that kind of money for someone breaking up with me. But even though money has now changed hands, the deal is not final. It has to be approved by Congress — and I have every expectation it will, based on this particular Congress — but it also has to pass inspection from state attorneys general. And wouldn’t you know, the Democratic AG of California, home of Hollywood, is already talking to his fellow Dem AGs about how to respond to this blatant antitrust violation:
CA AG ‘in conversation’ with other AGs: Tweeting the not-so quiet thing out loud today, Rob Bonta revealed he is in talks with other state (read Blue State) AGs about concerns they have on the absorption of WBD into the corporation owned by Donald Trump’s “good friends” David Ellison and his Oracle founder father Larry Ellison. “I’m in conversation with my AG colleagues about Paramount/Warner Bros,” the Golden State’s top lawman replied to Mark Ruffalo today. “As the epicenter of the entertainment industry, California has a special interest in protecting competition,” Bonta added in response to the progressively inclined Marvel star’s response to a previous February 26 posting by the Attorney General.
Mark Ruffalo is on the case! “Please let’s circle up all the State AG’s and talk about how this is going to kill completion in the industry and drive down wages, and product quality for consumers,” Ruffalo posted last night after news of Netflix dropping out of the battle for WBD and Paramount’s 11th hour $110 billion hostile takeover bid getting the Warner’s board nod. “There are lots of agents in Hollywood who can tell you how past mergers and consolidations have hurt their clients and business. There is lots of talent that can tell you the same.”
Plan of attack: Any attempt by state AGs to stop or slow down the Paramount and WBD meld would likely fit in to a competition and consolidation attack. Simply put, in the eyes of Blue State Justice Departments and maybe more, one big PARA-WBD would mean less places for filmmakers and producers to sell to and more power in the hands of one entity to set rates, prices and output. Without any irony on either side, that was pretty much the core of the claims MAGA and others made against Netflix when they were still aiming to buy WB.
Republicans won’t admit everything they screamed about Netflix is true of Paramount: With MAGA plans to derail “woke” Netflix from scooping up the WB crown jewels a success, Red State AGs are mute now on their insistence of earlier this week that federal AG Pam Bondi dig deep into possible Sherman Act violations by the streamer. In that context, a February 20 launched monopoly and antitrust probe by the DOJ into Netflix seems moot now. Even before there was a WBD deal for them, Paramount a week ago announced that it had moved past a DOJ antitrust examination and the necessary waiting period.
AGs: unite to form your Justice League! I honestly don’t know how much of a wrench they can throw into what feels like an inevitable master plan from a super villain, but I think it’s important that we see SOME attempts at resistance. What happens when Republicans in Congress say “Enjoy your new monopoly!” but Democratic states say “Ixnay on the onopolymay,” hmm? And from the actor resistance front, thank goodness for Mark Ruffalo! Aside from checking in with the CA AG, Ruffalo also clapped back to James Cameron when he wrote his asinine letter to Congress (in which he referred to himself as “a humble movie farmer,” barf). Similar to what Deadline points out here, Ruffalo calmly asked Cameron how any of his arguments against Netflix differed when it came to Paramount seizing control of WB. The answer is… NONE! So now we have the MAGA-friendly Ellisons in charge of yet more media companies. People are rightfully fearing for CNN and John Oliver, as they should be. We’re in the endgame now.
Mark, I hear you.
I’m in conversation with my AG colleagues about Paramount/Warner Bros.
As the epicenter of the entertainment industry, California has a special interest in protecting competition. https://t.co/Av74BFnEsi
— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) February 27, 2026
Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon and Getty
I am hoping they do something because I don’t see this merger as a good thing, monopolies never are.
On a side note I love the gray in his hair.
Hopefully they can stop this disaster.
So many dumpster fires, so little bandwidth…
This legit freaks me out. I don’t know if anything can be done to prevent this from happening. I just want to see interesting art, fresh faces, DIVERSE faces and diverse stories and something tells me Ellison ain’t it. And I want artists and creatives to be compensated fairly and again this ain’t it.
I love that state AGs get together to discuss how to combat the utter lawlessness of the trump regime. They give me hope.
They have to consolidate before the midterms. Afterwards, the picture will look much less rosy, for them. But here’s hoping the state AGs can stop this. Further consolidation will destroy the industry.