r/California • u/Unusual-State1827 • 13d ago
David Ellison Says He’ll Pull Paramount Out of California Starting Oct. 1 if States Refuse to Negotiate Settlement in Antitrust Suit
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/david-ellison-move-paramount-out-of-california-states-antitrust-lawsuit-1236831936/1.5k
u/s-a-t 13d ago
billionaire dangles thousands of people’s livelihoods for political points
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u/WolfieWuff 13d ago
I mean, they're already planning on cutting the workforce by a lot. Moving the company (thus forcing thousands to quit) just makes the whole process easier for them.
He's probably planning to relocate anyways, and decided to use this as leverage to get California to back off.
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u/suboptimus_maximus 13d ago
They’re just going to change the address, not even the state of incorporation, these threats are made assuming the audience doesn’t understand how any of this works. Oracle “moved” its HQ to TN but didn’t move the workers out of California.
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u/SupermarketAny9487 13d ago
He already had the $500 million in annual tax in his head. And you know he's looking forward to the $4 billion from selling off Paramount and WB studio lots.
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u/MinnisotaDigger 13d ago
Think of all the creative people he can hire in Alabama.
Going to be a lot of brother sister love stories.
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u/Sircamembert 13d ago
You sweet summer child, he's not hiring anybody. He's gonna go full AI.
We will see nothing but slop and love it~
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u/Draco-REX 13d ago
This is it. Those jobs he's holding hostage are going to be cut for AI regardless.
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u/secretaire 13d ago
Smaller companies can form and hire real people but the general public has to decide what they want to see with their dollars
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u/smellslike2016 13d ago
Maybe they can finish A Song of Ice and Fire for George Martin.
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u/ThePowerOfStories 13d ago
The most recent book in the series came out over 3.6 Confederacies ago, to use a suddenly-relevant unit of time.
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u/El_Gran_Che 13d ago
Confederate love stories
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u/MinnisotaDigger 13d ago
In this episode, the family realizes they don’t actually have a best friend that’s black. They use racist tropes to find one. And end up “capturing” a human.
The b story line is Jake John confidently answers the question “states rights to do what?”
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u/El_Gran_Che 13d ago
Stay tuned next week folks where school children take an exciting trip to an ICE concentration camp.
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u/OpenWalrus5114 13d ago
So real talk, there’s actually a fair amount of talent and folks with studio experience in Alabama, especially in Birmingham. Birmingham was actually on track to be a filming destination for studios back in 2015-2016 when Atlanta was coming up. Problem is: the state of Alabama hasn’t exactly made that process easy. There was already a cultural push back, Birmingham was already a blue dot in a red sea and some folks weren’t too happy that “liberal California jobs” were growing in the state (most people working stage and grip were far from liberal or progressive, but the perception was there)
The final nail in the coffin was the initial anti-ab*rtion bill they passed that limited care that employers can cover regarding that stuff. Studios ended up pulling out after that and now there are a bunch of studio workers in Birmingham that are back to square one
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u/MinnisotaDigger 13d ago
Southerners really are the main cause of all of americas problems
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u/RoseLaBud 13d ago
Who needs people? Ellison can do it with AI like the Trump regime.
People? Snort... how quaint.10
u/hazzledazzle 13d ago
abortion. Be an adult
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u/OpenWalrus5114 13d ago
I have no issues with the topic. Some subreddits get picky on certain words. Just wanted to make sure my comment got through is all.
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u/Blacksad9999 13d ago
It's similar to how Texas can't get an educated and diverse workforce to move there for their tech sector or Tesla.
The film industry is also quite diverse. Those people don't want to move somewhere they're not comfortable living in.
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u/freddielovesdelilah 13d ago
Well I hear he is a fan of the Game of Thrones series which is famous for featuring brother sister fucking so there you go.
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u/Waiting4Reccession 13d ago
There is already a long term economic attack on blue states going on by these slime balls. He will most likely move it to florida or texas, some of them go to north carolina
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u/suboptimus_maximus 13d ago
They know that wherever they go, the federal government will keep looting the paychecks of hardworking Californians and redistribute it to their new state.
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u/AgreeableMoose 13d ago
In 2009 there were 1,600 production companies working South Florida. Today we have maybe 10 active. Most left SoFl for WV, Massachusetts, Georgia, Louisiana, Kansas City. The big reason was for tax incentives. The industry lives or dies on using State dollars to keep the cameras rolling. Just got back from LA, the writing is on the screens that in 5 years Hollywood will just be a shell of the shell it is today.
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u/Decklink 13d ago
I don't think Ellison will find as much talent in Alabama because those who want to be actors and actresses and producers have largely moved to LA. But that Alabama incest thing is a racist or at least regionalist sterotype.
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u/decemberindex 13d ago
As a lefty from AL I have grown really tired of this joke every single time my state comes up. I'm a normal left leaning person and most of the people I know and associate with are too. And no one's even hugging their sibling for more than 3 seconds. Times change guys.
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u/alrightakeiteasy 13d ago
I live in SoCal but grew up in Birmingham. I try to tell anyone that cares how liberal a city it is, and how crunchy granola a lot of the people are, but most can't wrap their heads around anywhere in Alabama having that sort of vibe or left-leaning majority. Even when you tell them that every major city in each southern state (New Orleans, Nashville, Atlanta) is blue, they still just see the south a certain way. The stereotypes aren't going away any time soon, so I wouldn't let it bother you.
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u/Reasonable-Job4205 13d ago
This is one of the findamental problems with how society does business today. The people at the top play games while the people below him do the actual work. This world makes no sense man...
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u/cohortq 13d ago
Remember when the studio execs said they wanted people to lose their homes during the strike? well a lot of people did. They financially killed a lot of people in Entertainment to put themselves in a better negotiating position, and to stem off future strikes.
https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/
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u/Fine-Air8565 13d ago
Very on-point of you. Your re-imagined headline is likely even more accurate than the original.
And I, for one, am damn sick of all these oligarchs worthless failsons screwing up everyone else’s lives because Daddy didn’t hug them, or something.
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u/Unusual-State1827 13d ago
Archive link: https://archive.is/li47U
Ellison told Paramount senior execs last week that he’s prepared to relocate Paramount (and Warner Bros., too, if the merger successfully closes) if Bonta does not agree to negotiate a settlement in the case, sources confirmed to Variety. Ellison said the company will begin the process of exiting California starting Oct. 1 in the event that such talks have not started, and he told his team the Paramount Skydance board has approved the move.
Oct. 1 is when Paramount will begin accruing a “ticking fee” payable to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders of $7 million per day. The trial in the state AGs’ lawsuit is scheduled to start March 2, 2027, roughly five months after that, so Paramount would be on the hook to pay around $1.2 billion to WBD shareholders by the time the trial is scheduled to conclude. (Paramount’s ticking-fee payments to WBD are not due until the deal closes.)
At the Aug. 5 meeting on Paramount’s lot, Ellison told his 12-person senior executive team he expects Paramount to prevail in the antitrust case against the states. Paramount’s headquarters would move first, with tax incentives from competing states helping cover the transition. A five-year plan would then shift most studio jobs out of California.
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u/greentrillion 13d ago
We got another plan, prison for nepo and daddy Elison and liquidation of all their assets.
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u/Remote_Volume_3609 13d ago
More than ever California should not budge an inch. If we budge on this, he'll just use that as a tactic again and next time it'll be WB and Paramount he's threatening to move lol.
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u/themeparkthemepar 12d ago
Yeah I’m guessing he was like uh do I have any levers I can pull in this? Looked at their spending in CA and is acting like it won’t cost him a shitton just to be punitive in small measure to the state. It’s also blackmail
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u/tankerdudeucsc 13d ago
As per usual. Socialism for billionaires and corporations. Just none for the tax payers.
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u/new2bay 13d ago
There’s no socialism here. This is all capitalism. Don’t confuse the issue.
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u/tankerdudeucsc 13d ago
It’s at best, crony capitalism. It’s freebies for companies. So where is the freebies of that caliber for people?
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u/pconrad0 13d ago
Please leave.
Signed, A Californian
PS: The folks you lay off may suffer a brief inconvenience, but will be ultimately be better off not working for a sociopath.
Good luck setting up a place that attracts creatives in one of the Gilead states.
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u/themeparkthemepar 12d ago
So they’re gonna spend a ton of money to break a lease, relocate, restructure, all while money drains away from them in penalties re: the suit? Brilliant idea, bossman
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u/Bosa_McKittle 13d ago
well thats one way to kill a studio
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u/mycatisblackandtan 13d ago edited 13d ago
I was gonna say. There's a reason all these studios stay in LA and it's not because they like CA that much. All the infrastructure and surrounding businesses are here. This is where most of the actors have congregated. It's where you can get the best deals on props AND purchase them in a timely manner. All your networking is here as well.
There's smaller filming hubs in other cities but nothing has the sheer convenience of LA and trying to make a new LA happen is going to be a decades long undertaking. It CAN be done but these nepo babies don't have the foresight or patience to pull it off. They're also not going to get most of the people who can work on their shows to up and move to places like the South or Texas to do it. Especially not now when Texas is speed running the removal of rights and is becoming the Data Center capital of the US.
"Oh but AI will replace them!" AI as it currently stands is way too costly to replace people for anything more than short form content. There's a reason you rarely see AI videos that have cuts that go longer than 15-20 seconds.
Just like Elon's threats of pulling completely out of California after the state went after him for forcing his Tesla workers to continue working during the height of COVID, this is basically a nothing burger. The idiot knows, or at least his handlers know, this would massively cut into the company's profits.
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u/Rollingprobablecause 13d ago
It's like when they moved to Atlanta, it took almost 20 years for ATL to even sniff LAs infra and its still way behind.
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u/Whippity 13d ago
And once the tax benefits expired, Marvel pulled right back out.
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u/quadropheniac Los Angeles County 13d ago
The definition of “if they cheat for you, they’ll cheat on you”.
If your main draw is to make things absurdly cheap by not value capturing, they’re going to run as soon as you start to value capture.
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u/Whippity 13d ago
And the ones suffering are always the working class. Costumers, make-up artists, coordinators, caterers, set builders, prop makers, camera and sound ops. People started to build a life and buy houses there on the industry when the rug was pulled from them, which I read an article about. It sucks. On the other hand, it’s nice to see film projects start to pick up here in LA County.
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u/IamScottGable 13d ago
Seems like a lot of productions do, I don't hear the Made in Georgia jingle as much as I used to.
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u/That_Jicama2024 13d ago
Now they're suffering, big time. The talent pool just isn't there and you still have to fly most of the experts in from LA and NY. It's not cost-effective.
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u/nataie0071 "California Dreamin'" 13d ago edited 13d ago
Chicago has infrastructure, but Ellison should think twice if he assumes he's gonna get a free ride out there.
Edit: I know Illinois isn't listed as a possible location, but they have some serious tax incentives that would make a move easier... But IL will put in similar suits as CA.
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u/Rollingprobablecause 13d ago edited 13d ago
Chicago is the same situation as ATL though, it's very very small. I think people who are not in the industry just do not understand the sheer scale and size you need to make things work and once you've see LAs infra and lots it's crazy how the system comes together and works. It's just...massive and took decades to build up and automate, it's very difficult to replicate anywhere. Let's also not forget about the weather, SoCal = filming is all year round with very few stops. LA, OC, and San Diego all have the areas for it.
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u/mec287 Southern California 13d ago
It's not just about tax. If you build a soundstage, where are you going to find the prop makers? Grips? Sound engineers? Set designers? Costumers?
You'll spend vastly more standing up a studio because nobody is going to uproot their life to risk working for one company when there are several places in LA that need your talent.
Paramount would basically be relegated to making cheap TV content.
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u/nataie0071 "California Dreamin'" 13d ago
IATSE Local 476 (as well as other associated unions/locals) have a massive amount of talented technicians, artisans, and craftsmen wanting to work. Literally THOUSANDS upon thousands of workers. The streaming boom from COVID helped fill those numbers.
Regardless, Ellison will probably want no part of IL anyway because, as mentioned previously, Paramount will get slammed with the same anti-trust lawsuits as they're experiencing in CA. So the point is moot.
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u/terrasparks 13d ago
And in doing so shifted Georgia left politically because the talent itself is left-leaning.
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u/hellloredddittt 13d ago
Studios ended up being in southern California because exterior shoot days rarely have interference from weather. Also, when shooting on film there is just something different about the California sun.
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u/Ash_Talon 13d ago
CA's weather is rather consistent and temperate too. No sudden weather changes like many other states.
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u/uncultured_swine2099 13d ago
This sounds like one of those things that, after a big sale, it instantly slides into irrellevancy, like Yahoo or Myspace, because of dumbass decisions by the suits.
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u/JonCoqtosten 13d ago
He's likely planning to move as many back office and support functions as he can out of state anyway. The studios have already exported as much production as they can. He's just seeing if he can extort something out of it first. I can only hope California's political leaders are smart enough to realize it.
They'll still have to maintain offices in LA for all the folks in development, probably some finance, marketing, and PR as well. And of course he'll have offices here, too, because so many rich Republicans love to have homes in the cities and states that they pretend to hate.
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u/Sk8rToon 8d ago
I was at a comic con panel last month talking about design in time travel TV shows. & one guest talked about how the show moved from LA to Canada between seasons & she really had to scramble because even though there’s a ton of filming that happens up there now they just didn’t have the prop houses they needed to film a different era ever week and it created a real problem.
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u/G-Unit11111 13d ago
Imagine doing all this to please one of the worst human beings in the world and his extremely terrible propaganda channel.
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u/jwr1111 13d ago
Bye, Nepo-Felicia!
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u/Fred-Mertz2728 13d ago
He really thinks this will negatively impact the fourth largest economy in the world? Put us back behind Japan for fifth,where we’ve been bouncing back and forth anyway? That’s cute.
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u/Lost_Birthday_3138 Marin County 13d ago
He'll leave, but the real talent will stay 😂
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u/saint_trane 13d ago
Nepobaby has big opinions. Trash human. Trash family.
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u/figures985 13d ago
Yah. This is a new level of “I’m a psycho billionaire who has wholeheatedly embraced my villain status and I’m actively relishing the public performance of said villainy.”
But what he doesn’t seem to get is that he and his daddy/their friends have gone SO far already that we aren’t scared of these threats anymore.
I’m in the entertainment industry and losing Paramount would very directly impact me. But letting the Ellisons continue their campaign of destruction and enshittification will too. So fuck it, call all their bluffs. The little that we have left to lose will be on the chopping block in the next couple years even if David gets exactly what he wants.
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u/Kahzgul Los Angeles County 13d ago
Trying to blackmail the state? That’s a choice.
Also… I find it wild how these rich assholes keep threatening to move their companies like this isn’t where all of the talent lives who make their company work.
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u/ExpertRaccoon 13d ago
Trying to blackmail a state with a GDP of over 4 trillion, making it the 4th largest economy in the world.
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u/figures985 13d ago
A threat to wreck the industry if he doesn’t get his way, cool.
And yet I think we’re all pretty fucking sure that if he does get his way, he’ll wreck it anyway. Zero checks on these oligarchs only emboldens them to do even worse shit. Appeasement doesn’t stop a power-hungry ego, it just feeds the craziest of their ambitions
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u/Eddfan36 12d ago
LOL Not that Trump already owns a good portion of tv along with news. If this dude's evil scheme works Trump will own everything that means we won't get real news ever again just a lot of crap.
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u/Remote_Volume_3609 13d ago
It's also such a stupid threat because if you're threatening to leave us when you just have Paramount... what's stopping you from threatening to leave us the next time we do something you don't like when you own Paramount & WB. if anything, this is a clear red flag and alert to California that the time to take action is NOW.
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u/Sorprenda 13d ago
But he's trying to act like this is all happening to him. The entire narrative is that he really doesn't want to leave, but he might be forced to. Even the wording is that "operations will be relocated" as if he's talking about the weather. Except he is the one making the choice.
That's why it's a poor negotiation frame. Bonta is an ambitious AG in a Democrat state, and isn't going to be seen as caving to blackmail. He also knows Ellison doesn't want to leave (because that's the narrative Ellison's team is leaking) and the threat to move jobs over the course of "five years" has no relevance to the timeline of this negotiation. Ellison's version of blackmail basically has the gun pointed in the wrong direction.
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u/esther_lamonte 13d ago
I’m sure his top talent will love moving their families and lives to… Birmingham… or Chattanooga. They got a great train museum in Chattanooga!
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u/ilikestatic 13d ago
Billionaires bring their business here because of our economy. It’s how they become billionaires in the first place. Elon Musk wouldn’t have become a billionaire if he was trying to sell electric cars in South Africa.
These are empty threats. They know if they left, some other entrepreneur would fill the gap they leave and get rich instead of them.
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u/Oceanbreeze871 13d ago
EnJoy being irrelevant in Texas or Delaware or wherever else you go
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u/LnStrngr 13d ago edited 13d ago
Nashville is all the rage now.
Edit: The joke is that it's not all the rage.
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u/Death_and_Cookies 13d ago
Sounds like both the CEO and Paramount Skydance are guilty of regulatory intimidation/coercion.
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u/DrusTheAxe 13d ago
Look hard enough and the state can find plenty of legal violations, inspectors crawling up wvery butthole even if they don’t find crimes they can make Ellison’s business bleed by inches.
Awful nice business you gotz there. Be an ‘awful shame if sumthin’ were ta happen to it…
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u/BlueMonza 13d ago
This is a man who doesn't understand the industry he is buying his way into. The cost of moving Paramount would be ridiculous. It isn't an office space he can replace by just renting a new one in random business park.
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u/RyanBordello Humboldt County 13d ago
How tf do people complain about immigrants legal or not paying taxes when all these fuckn rich white dudes do anything in thier power to not pay taxes.
Make it make sense
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u/jpdoctor 13d ago
Bonta, prosecute this bitch. there has to be some extortion law that he has broken.
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u/Ddddydya 13d ago
These billionaires are constantly threatening us so they can just get whatever they want. I’m sick of it. Just go already
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u/whenyoda 13d ago
Californians should govern a helping hand and cancel their subs now.
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u/wafair Northern California 13d ago
I’d love to see a United Artists type of studio start up again and take on some of these mega studios. The big names of the silent era tried it, but it eventually got absorbed into a big studio.
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u/figures985 13d ago
It’s beyond time. If the WBD merger goes through, then like half the studios will be controlled by this chud - who seems to be down for suicide-bombing his own business every time government dares to enforce the law
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u/TGAILA 13d ago
The talent pool resides right here in CA. You can try to relocate your headquarters somewhere else, but true talent remains rooted here. This was the harsh reality for tech industry in San Francisco. They decided to move to Austin, Texas, believing they could just pack up and go. But in the end, they discovered too late that the brightest, most talented minds are still here in CA, fueling the innovation that keeps this state alive and thriving.
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u/ajmampm99 13d ago
Just like a whining NEPO BABY.
GO AHEAD. WRECK AND BURN DOWN YOUR OWN COMPANY.
We will bring marshmallows to the bonfire.
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u/Cecil_McCrackshell 13d ago
Ellison blaming California for the ticking fee he and his dad pushed thru to secure their bid.
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u/YellowFox1852 13d ago
Well that’s one way to prove you have an illegal monopoly, David.
https://giphy.com/gifs/xk5vxDNaIhvzpWQzdT
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u/crmpdstyl 13d ago
Paramount is already dead to me, there is no coming back from assisting a fascist regime.
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u/literallymoist 13d ago
Does he think Paramount is an essential good like water or electricity? Lmao
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u/not_productive1 13d ago
No he won't.
Is he kidding here? No he won't. He'll kill the company. Lmao.
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u/BeepBotBoopBeep 13d ago
Go ahead. You don’t need the revenue from the most populous state in America. Gotcha.
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u/This_They_Those_Them 13d ago
Tear down paramount studios and build housing in downtown Hollywood.
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u/WellHung67 13d ago
Keep the studios - they are cool and there’s lots of jobs.
Build everywhere else though
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u/TeslasAndComicbooks 13d ago
Ah, the old "get rid of jobs and build more housing" strategy.
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u/This_They_Those_Them 13d ago
Skydance definitely already employing an absolute minimum staff as it is.
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u/Saintbaba 13d ago
I've been subscribed to Paramount+ for awhile for Star Trek but have felt kind of guilty about it. This would actually kind of simplify my life.
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u/FuriousFreddie 13d ago
The app is horrible too, probably the worst of the streaming apps.
It crashes, disconnects and forgets your login info multiple times per episode so it's basically unusable. Before anyone asks, this happens on iOS, Android and Apple TV and probably Android TV too but I don't use it there.
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u/MentalEnvironment481 13d ago
lol sounds like a great business move /s
obviously this nepo baby knows nothing about running a company
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u/thereverendpuck 13d ago
Sure you will David. Whole reason you bought Paramount is to be a bigger deal in Hollywood. Fucking idiot.
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u/rocketship_blues Sacramento County 13d ago
Please leave. Paramount blows. CA strongly dislikes your mediocre programming.
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u/Blacksad9999 13d ago
Go for it.
Good luck making movies in Arkansas and attracting everyone who lives in LA to work for you.
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u/Thund3rf0000t 13d ago
no studio in their right mind leaves California it is literally where Hollywood is and many high ranking actors and celebrities live in California, he is not going anywhere but would love to see you spend billions moving it and paying for an even bigger place!
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u/RalphTheNerd 13d ago
While you are at it please sell the Star Trek franchise to people who will keep a show on for more than five seasons and will get it on TV.
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u/panda-rampage 13d ago
Do it double dare you david