Judge Sets Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Trial for March

“We respect the court’s decision,” a spokeswoman for Paramount said in a statement. A spokeswoman for Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said that his office appreciated “the court’s attention to the case.”

In a letter to investors on Tuesday, David Ellison, the Paramount owner, said the company was making strides to improve its business while it prepared to close the deal. The company said it would generate $3.9 billion in adjusted profit this year as it cuts billions in costs.

The lawsuit is one of the final hurdles in Paramount’s monthslong campaign to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, a merger that would unite under one roof two major movie studios, the streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+, and networks including CBS and CNN.

Paramount has argued that the deal will help the company compete with streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. Mr. Ellison argued in an opinion essay in The New York Times on Tuesday that the lawsuits trying to block the deal “imagine a Hollywood that no longer exists.”

But attorneys general in several states, led by Mr. Bonta, have argued that the deal would give Paramount outsize dominance in several areas, including the production of films in wide release; tentpole movies, which are the costly would-be blockbusters that sustain studio revenue; and basic cable channels. The Writers Guild of America has also sued, arguing the deal would harm writers.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/business/media/paramount-warner-bros-trial-march.html