That was ugly

Anyone who had put money on Bonta for Governor might want to visit their Polymarket account. It's generally bad for their political careers when crusading attorneys general humiliate themselves by completely folding on their biggest case.

From the Hollywood Reporter.

That’s All? Team Paramount Nabs Warner Bros. With Only Minor Concessions to States
Erik Hayden After all of that sound and fury, that’s it? “I don’t think these two companies should merge,” said California attorney general Rob Bonta in unveiling a settlement with David Ellison to allow the mogul to do just that with Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount’s C-suite must have been popping bottles of champagne as the press office engines of the major studio and 12 state attorney generals typed up the settlement term boilerplate language of what ended up being a stern finger-wave to Ellison’s team. When Bonta held his presser on Monday he made a point to note multiple times that he personally was not in favor of the merger while rattling off that Paramount would invest $1.5 billion in domestic production over five years, Paramount and Warner Bros. need to keep their studio lots as is in Los Angeles and CBS News and CNN would have independent editorial boards. Additionally, the Paramount and Warners cable channels (think: Comedy Central-MTV-BET-Nick and HGTV-Food Network-TNT-Discovery, respectively) will have to negotiate affiliate agreements separately. The studios also need to invest $9.5 million a year in workforce training and career development in film and TV production communities. And the megastudio will start a $5 million annual fund to bankroll indie movies. (Not to mention Paramount will also pay $40 million to reimburse the 12 states who sued it for attorneys’ and economic expert fees.) A five-year commitment for 30 films does up the three-year pledge Ellison had earlier signed on to. And if the studios fail to meet that threshold, they would be hit with a $30 million penalty per film. Bonta says that $1.5 billion figure represents $300 million more annually than the combined studios spent last year. In the fine-print consent degree, there’s a lot of rules-of-the-road language on potential divestitures (like selling, say, Miramax Studios or Comedy Central or VH1) if Paramount fails to follow through on its commitments (Notably, blue-chip assets like CNN or New Line Cinema are not even on the table to divest in that scenario). But the commitments themselves don’t appear to be that high of a bar to achieve.

For those who will be canceling their HBO Max subscriptions soon, make sure to check out Bryan Fuller's inspired feature debut Dust Bunny.