Paramount chief David Ellison, after a fierce year-long battle, is finally about to get his hands on Warner Bros. Discovery — in the most expensive takeover in Hollywood history. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who is overseeing the antitrust case aimed at blocking the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal approved Paramount’s settlement with the 12 Democratic state attorneys general who brought the case to resolve the litigation.
Paramount has tentatively set next Tuesday, Oct. 6, to close the merger, according to regulatory filings. The order approving the settlement by Martínez-Olguín was the final remaining barrier to Paramount’s debt-fueled $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, after it had been cleared by regulators in 68 jurisdictions worldwide including the Justice Department.
She determined that the proposed settlement agreement “reflects a procedurally sound resolution.” “The parties reached their agreement following highly contested, however brief, litigation, and they reached their agreement following what they report to have been several rounds of in-depth negotiations,” the judge wrote. The merged Paramount-WBD will bring together two of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios; the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services; and TV businesses including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, Food Network and more. The new company’s entertainment franchises will span Harry Potter, “Game of Thrones” and other HBO hits, the DC Universe, “Yellowstone,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Top Gun” and the Nickelodeon kids’ empire.
Some of the top leadership of the soon-to-be-merged company, whose name hasn’t been revealed at this point, is already taking shape. On Wednesday came word that Ellison has recruited Ynon Kreiz, who is stepping down as Mattel’s CEO, for a senior management role at the combined Paramount-WBD. Casey Bloys, head of WBD’s HBO, is poised to assume oversight of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. streaming business after Cindy Holland announced Tuesday she was stepping down from her role running Paramount+ and other direct-to-consumer.
With the deal close, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is expected to depart. Zaslav stands to earn more than $550 million in stock and cash once the Paramount-WBD deal closes, including $34.2 million in cash severance payments.
Other top WBD execs anticipated to exit include chief revenue and strategy officer Bruce Campbell and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels. Martínez-Olguín’s ruling came after merger opponents filed official objections with the court over Paramount’s settlement with the states. The consent decree includes no structural remedies (i.e., divestitures) as California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the coalition of states in suing to stop the looming merger, had previously insisted on.
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