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Chaos on the lot, and a plan in Washington<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s chaos over there. Projects are on hold,\u201d the insider says.<\/p>\n That tracks with everything we\u2019ve been reporting. <\/p>\n Insiders describe open season on James Gunn\u2019s job<\/a>, with Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy set to take DC under their umbrella once the deal closes.<\/p>\n The Batman Part II just slid to February 2028<\/a>, a day after I reported on the standoff over Gunn wanting his own Batman, with Alan Ritchson the frontrunner for Gunn\u2019s DCU Batman<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the insider adds something that changes how you should read the week\u2019s biggest story: \u201cEllison is meeting with both sides of the aisle for National Tax Credit for film, and that is to make concessions to the States. Still a process but they feel confident States will withdraw their lawsuits.\u201d<\/p>\n When Variety reported that Ellison was in D.C. pushing a first-ever federal film incentive<\/a>, the framing was irony: the mogul funding Hollywood\u2019s rescue the same day California sued him.<\/p>\n Per my insiders, it isn\u2019t irony. It\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n The federal tax credit is part of the peace offering to the suing states. <\/p>\n Stack it on top of the binding commitments Paramount already put on the table, the 30 theatrical releases a year, the 45-day windows, keeping both California lots open, and you can see the settlement taking shape: the states get a face-saving win for their film economies, and Paramount gets its merger.<\/p>\n Bonta\u2019s Solution Is the Warner Bros. Breakup He Claims to Prevent<\/p>\n However, publicly, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is having none of it. <\/p>\n In his first tough interview about the case<\/a>, he said he can\u2019t credit executive promises made to get mergers approved. Zaslav promised 20 movies in 2024 and delivered nine, so why believe Ellison\u2019s 30?<\/p>\n Fair point. But listen to what Bonta said next.<\/p>\n Asked what Paramount could actually do to satisfy him, he said promises don\u2019t count, only \u201cstructural remedies\u201d do. That\u2019s lawyer-speak for selling things off: a divestiture, a breakup.<\/p>\n So follow the roads. <\/p>\n If Bonta ever settles, his stated price is pieces of the combined company being sold. <\/p>\n
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If Bonta wins and the deal dies, my insiders say Warner Bros. gets sold off in pieces anyway, because the healthy, independent Warner Bros. his lawsuit assumes he\u2019s protecting does not exist.<\/p>\n So in either of Bonta\u2019s win scenarios, Warner Bros. loses.<\/p>\n The only future where Warner Bros. stays whole is the deal Bonta is suing to stop, the Paramount merger.<\/p>\n Why \u2018sold off in pieces\u2019 is the real alternative<\/p>\n The MGM comparison is not hypothetical. <\/p>\n Before Ellison\u2019s $30-per-share offer, Warner Bros. Discovery had already spent months preparing to split itself into two companies so the pieces could be sold separately.<\/p>\n That breakup plan had already mapped out how Warner Bros. could be carved apart. <\/p>\n The bidding war also showed who would come for the pieces: Netflix, whose own film chief admitted it won\u2019t work with filmmakers who insist on theaters<\/a>. The very streamers Bonta claims aren\u2019t a threat, yet Paramount is.<\/p>\n And Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s own boss is not acting like a man planning to run this company for years. <\/p>\n Per Puck\u2019s Matthew Belloni, CEO David Zaslav spent lawsuit week hitting Wimbledon and Sun Valley, and cashed out another $59 million of his own Warner Bros. stock the very day the states sued. Sellers sell.<\/p>\n If the states kill this deal<\/a>, the fallback is not a healthy, independent Warner Bros. <\/p>\n The fallback is the breakup, a damaged stock, and a seller shopping the parts to buyers who don\u2019t want a studio; they want a library.<\/p>\n MGM was once the mightiest studio in Hollywood. Today it\u2019s a label inside Amazon, a streamer. <\/p>\n Per my insiders, becoming an Amazon-owned label like MGM is the \u201cbest-case\u201d outcome if the deal dies. The worst-case outcome is Warner Bros. being broken up and sold for parts.<\/p>\n Which is worth remembering when you read Bonta\u2019s op-ed about preserving the industry<\/a>. <\/p>\n
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\n Rob Bonta is the California attorney general leading the 12-state lawsuit to block Paramount from buying Warner Bros. Monday night, hours after…
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\n Milly Alcock is teasing the kind of message audiences can expect from Supergirl, and it sounds like this version of Kara Zor-El…
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