By admin 
An Oakland federal judge has set a trial date next year for Attorney General Rob Bonta’s challenge of Paramount’s proposed $111 billion takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery on antitrust grounds.
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The trial will start March 2, 2027, and run until March 19, for a total of 12 days in court, according to a scheduling order issued Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín.
Last week, Paramount paused the proposed deal after California, led by Bonta, and a dozen other states challenged the merger. The states argued that it would subsume most of the entertainment sector, leading to thousands of lost jobs and further concentrate power over the streaming, film and TV industries in the hands of fewer studio heads.
The Writers Guild of America union is also suing, arguing that the deal would scuttle competition by making more writers compete for fewer job opportunities.
Martínez-Olguín previously granted Bonta’s request for a temporary restraining order barring the merger from going into effect while his suit plays out in court.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom has been relatively silent on the proposed merger, but privately expressed concerns that state employment would suffer if the deal was blocked in court, and has been urging Bonta to settle it out of court, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Paramount CEO David Ellison published an op-ed in the New York Times Tuesday, defending the proposed merger.
“Both (Bonta’s and the WGA’s) suits imagine a Hollywood that no longer exists — an industry ruled by a handful of legacy studios,” he wrote. “That machinery is in trouble. Hollywood is losing ground to technology platforms whose algorithms reward the loudest voices. The work is leaving, especially from California — where I grew up and where I’m raising my family — draining the deepest pool of creative talent ever assembled.”
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