Paramount Reaches Settlement with California Over $111B Warner Bros. Discovery Mega-Merger

Paramount Skydance reached a landmark settlement with a coalition of 12 state attorneys general led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, clearing a major antitrust roadblock to its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery ($WBD) and lifting shares across both media companies.
Key concessions and enforcement terms of the settlement include:
• Theatrical Distribution Mandate: Paramount agreed to release at least 30 feature films theatrically per year for the first two years, stepping up to 32 films annually for the subsequent three years; each unproduced film incurs a $30 million penalty or could force a divestiture of Paramount's stake in Miramax.
• Structural & Domestic Commitments: Paramount and Warner Bros. Pictures will initially operate as separate studio divisions, backed by a commitment to spend an incremental $1.5 billion ($300 million annually) on domestic U.S. film production over five years.
• Editorial Governance Safeguards: The deal mandates an independent journalistic oversight board to insulate news operations at CNN and CBS News from executive and political interference, monitored by a court-appointed trustee.
• Deal Urgency: The agreement averts a scheduled March 2027 trial and circumvents a punitive ticking fee starting October 1, 2026, which would have cost Paramount approximately $7 million per day ($650 million per quarter) owed to WBD shareholders until closing.