How Paramount Won Warner Bros.

With a crucial deadline approaching in an antitrust lawsuit challenging Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros.Discovery, Rob Bonta, the California attorney general spearheading the opposition to the deal, spoke at The Atlantic Festival in New York.Paramount, he said on Thursday during a panel discussion, was responding to “a straight-up, black-and-white, bread-and-butter, meat-and-potatoes antitrust case” by threatening to leave California.Twenty-four hours later, Mr.

Bonta was calling the other 11 states party to the suit and striking a different tone.He feared Paramount was going to follow through on its threat, according to two people familiar with the call, and said it was time to settle.On Monday, the two sides announced a settlement that eliminated the last significant obstacle to a deal that would unite two iconic movie studios, the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services, and CNN and CBS News.

They will all be under the control of David Ellison, the tech scion who has become a major player in entertainment and news.The seeming about-face disappointed some of Mr.Bonta’s allies among the attorneys general and in Hollywood, many of whom were pushing for far-reaching concessions from Paramount — a sale of CNN, for example, or a commitment to spending more on TV production.The settlement, however, was driven by pressures building for months.

The states’ case was far from a legal slam dunk.Paramount’s relocation threats had terrified Californians, and worried other prominent state Democrats, including Gov.

Gavin Newsom, who were leaning on Mr.Bonta to settle, according to two people familiar with the settlement deliberations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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