Today’s headline: the Paramount-WBD fight hits court, and delay fees are looming. Welcome to Paramount Skydance Watch. San Francisco Chronicle, with G. Allen Johnson:
“It’s extraordinarily dangerous and destructive to allow a single billionaire to have so much control over what we see and over the construction and the production and the presentation of quote unquote truth.” The billionaire Shenker-Osorio was referring to is David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and CEO of Paramount Skydance. His company has been trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery since January.
Winston Cho, writing in The Hollywood Reporter:
Those designs were stymied when a coalition of 12 states led by California sued to block the deal, likely putting an end to its planned closing date. The lawsuit pushes to the forefront the risk of Paramount being forced to pay a hefty fee to Warners shareholders for the delay.
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Next up, we’re watching for Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín’s decision on the states’ temporary restraining order, due by next Wednesday. Then there’s the September 30 merger deadline. After that, The Hollywood Reporter says Warner shareholders are owed roughly $650 million per quarter, or $6.9 million per day.
If you want to dig into anything that caught your ear, links to every story we mentioned are in the show notes.
That’s it for Paramount Skydance Watch today. This is a Lantern Podcast.