Bonta's Merger Column Names Three Markets and a Trial Date — But Not a Single Side Deal

The California attorney general's guest column in Deadline lays out the states' antitrust theory against the $111 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery deal. What it does not do is itemize the "side deals" in the headline.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta published a guest column in Deadline on Monday arguing that the states' case against Paramount Skydance's proposed purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery is being fought in public relations because it is losing on the law. Read closely, the column is a tight statement of an antitrust theory — and a notably unspecific accusation.

The facts around it, per Deadline's editors' note: California, New York and 10 other states sued on July 13 to stop the $111 billion acquisition. Last week a federal judge set the antitrust action for a two-week trial in March 2027. Deadline frames that scheduling as a blow to the David Ellison-run Paramount.

The three markets

Bonta's argument turns on concentration in three defined markets: film distribution for wide release films, distribution of anticipated blockbuster films, and cable television. He writes that the combined company would control nearly one-third of theatrical motion picture distribution and nearly one-third of basic cable channels, including 50 of the most popular cable channels.

The blockbuster market is where he presses hardest. The merger, he writes, would leave four distributors in control of more than 90% of anticipated top-grossing films — a category that, by his figure, accounts for 88% of box office revenue for films released over the past four years. He names Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning and A Minecraft Movie, released in April and May of last year by the two merging companies, and asks a counterfactual rather than asserting an outcome: would a merged studio have released both back-to-back, funded both marketing campaigns, protected both production budgets?

"We can't know the answers, but these are the kinds of concerning questions with industry-wide impacts that our lawsuit intends to prevent."

The statute he cites is the Clayton Act. The remedy he rejects, in advance, is a package of commitments: the harm, he writes, "can't be remedied with a few one-off, piecemeal promises."

What the column does not say

Deadline's own headline on the piece promises misinformation and side deals. The column text does not itemize a side deal, name a party to one, or attach a dollar figure to one. The closest it comes is a general line about companies succeeding on merit rather than "what backdoor deals they can land, connections they can lean on." Readers looking for the specifics will not find them in the column.

Context sits in the editors' note instead. Deadline lists recent merger endorsements from TKO boss Ari Emanuel and former cable news anchor Chris Wallace — both, the outlet notes, with deep financial connections to Paramount — along with exhibitor executives, a CNN-focused New York Times op-ed from Ellison, and theatrical release pledges. Deadline separately reported that Paramount is making deals with theaters for 30 films a year after the acquisition, and that exhibitor group Cinema United remains opposed.

The procedural record he leans on

To rebut the claim that the suit is political, Bonta points to two things: a judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the merger, and the companies agreed to pause the deal until a final decision or until next June rather than contest preliminary injunction hearings. "If this was about politics," he writes, "we would have been thrown out of court the day we filed."

The column carries no response from Paramount or Warner Bros. Discovery, and none appears in the material Deadline published alongside it. Bonta closes: "And we intend to win."