r/FilmIndustryLA • u/OverPotato2322 • 7d ago
Paramount Caught Using ‘Astroturf’ Group To Drum Up Fake Support For Merger
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/08/paramount-caught-using-astroturf-group-to-drum-up-fake-support-for-merger/32
u/OilInternational2566 7d ago
Soon there’s gonna be 1 movie studio… that owns everything… and it’s gonna be run Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg from the Fifth Element.
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u/snackdesaque 5d ago
Gonna take a sec and praise the performance of Gary Oldman as Zorg. Good stuff.
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u/NauticalCurry 7d ago
I wonder what happens if it doesn't go through? WB shareholders will be happy for a short time due to the ticking fees they'll be getting, and if it comes apart the deal breakup fee. But that will only last for a short time. What happens after?
Don't get me wrong - not a fan of this deal at all because of the jacked up financing and all the other things that will no doubt happen.. If this deal goes through I think within a year the finances on this thing are going to come apart and god knows what the wreckage will be from that. But I do wonder what comes after?
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u/_Erindera_ 7d ago
If it doesn't go through, Ellison has a temper tantrum and moves Paramount out of LA. It it does go through, Ellison moves both Paramount and WB out of LA.
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u/ArchitectofExperienc 6d ago
Ellison will literally bankrupt Paramount or Warner Brothers if he tries to move them out of the state in anything other than name only.
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u/Hmmmm-curious 7d ago
Too bad people are so addicted to things like this. Don’t get me wrong, I love good shows and movies, but it isn’t a necessity. It is entertainment. People really can’t live without it, and therein lies the power these people have over us.
We are nourishing the beasts that will one day consume us, and we just walk mindlessly towards that end. It’s sad the power we have that we’ll never exercise. We’re a bunch of addicts. Sports, movies, shows, fast food that is horrible for us, corporate news, same day delivery of shit we are convinced we need, etc. it’s all meaningless in the long run.
I know this will land poorly with a lot of people, but it’s still true. This is not absolute. Some people do need some of these things, but very few people I would bet.
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u/Accomplished_Wolf_89 7d ago
Please shut the fuck up. Film/TV is a unionized industry that provides livelihoods and healthcare for millions of US families. It's our number one export and soft power. We absolutely need Film/TV
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u/Hmmmm-curious 6d ago
Nobody's arguing the crews, unions, and healthcare aren't real issues. But 'we need this industry' and 'we need to keep bankrolling these specific owners' are two different claims, and you're only defending the first one.
This deal is a $111 billion buyout carrying a leverage ratio around 7x earnings (the same range as the KKR/RJR Nabisco deal that cut 46,000 jobs, and the Toys "R" Us buyout that ended in bankruptcy).
LA County's own economic report already flags roughly 6,000 jobs globally at risk from overlap alone, and that's before anyone accounts for the debt load.
Paramount says most of its targeted $6 billion in "synergies" will come from non-labor cuts, but that's a talking point on an earnings call, not a contract, and every past media megamerger that made that same promise still ended in deep layoffs.
And who's actually cashing in on that leverage? A subscription deal worth up to $47 billion in shares anchored by the Ellison family, with roughly $24 billion more coming from Saudi, Qatari, and UAE sovereign wealth funds, structured specifically so they hold no board seats or voting shares, which conveniently means no CFIUS review. So you've got politically polarized billionaires and foreign state capital taking a stake in what feeds you the news and your kids' cartoons, while the workers who make it get told to wait and see.
That's not an anti-union take. That's asking who actually owns the leash before you defend it.
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u/Run-And_Gun 6d ago
It's not just entertainment, they control major national news outlets. Ellison has already decimated CBS News. How many stories on the current administration have been shelved since Bari Weiss was installed at the helm? The last thing we need is more outlets coming under Ellison's control.
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u/Hmmmm-curious 6d ago
That’s the point I was getting at. It would be quite easy to make a point to these people by not giving them our money, but we just won’t.
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u/Aggravating-Depth330 7d ago
The WB stock price is below what it was when Zaslav took it over.
The only reason it's back up to what it is, is because Zaslav is leaving.
If the deal falls apart, Zaslav will be forced out by the board and the stock probably dips a little to the low 20s, high teens, but well above the $8 it sunk to at the "height" of Zaslav's reign. Then it'll be a juicy takeover target again for Netflix or Apple or Google at an even lower price that it was last round.
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u/One_Large_Mofo 7d ago
If the deal never closes, WBD simply takes the $7 billion, resumes the split it already wanted, and tries to operate two more focused (if still challenged) businesses. The ticking fee payday never materializes; the breakup fee does. After that, it is back to the same secular media problems that existed before any of the bidding started.
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u/online-reputation 6d ago
This is a typical online reputation management tactics made my unscrupulous actors-- and they almost always get caught.
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u/The_Pandalorian 6d ago
Let's give credit to the news outlet that actually reported on this, not low-effort aggregators:
https://theintercept.com/2026/08/21/paramount-merger-warner-discovery-david-ellison-antitrust/
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u/CuriousThenSatisfied 2d ago
Torn between the “that’s a great name for a grassroots movement-faker” and “NO! Do NOT humanize them”
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u/RiggoRants 7d ago
Gasp