In April, five streaming subscribers filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block Paramount Skydance‘s $111 billion deal to swallow up Warner Bros. Discovery on antitrust grounds.
Paramount on Thursday (June 3) filed a motion with the court seeking to have the case dismissed, arguing that the plaintiffs’ allegations that the merger violates antitrust laws “do not have any factual support.”
“This case concerns the future of the entertainment industry and a misguided attempt by Plaintiffs to politicize antitrust law,” Paramount said in its filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland. “The merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery presents an opportunity to revitalize Hollywood and the industry at large by creating greater competition that benefits consumers, theaters, and workers alike.”
“This clumsy attempt to politicize antitrust litigation, untethered to any established antitrust principles or law, has no place in this courthouse and must be rejected,” the company’s filing said.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs — three current Paramount+ subscribers and two prospective subscribers — allege that they face increased prices and reduced viewing options as a result of the Warner Bros. transaction. The suit not only seeks an injunction blocking the Paramount-WBD deal but also seeks to force Skydance to divest itself of Paramount Global, a deal that closed in August 2025.
In addition, the five plaintiffs assert they are owed damages as consumers of news and as regular moviegoers. The lawsuit alleges that Skydance curried favor with the Trump administration in order to win approval of the Paramount deal, arguing that it has agreed to “align CBS News’s editorial posture” with the White House, and thereby “reduced the credibility, editorial independence, and investigative vigor of its reporting.” The suit also alleges that the plaintiffs will not have as many options at movie theaters if the Warner Bros. deal goes through.
In a statement provided to Variety, a Paramount rep said: “As our response today makes clear, plaintiffs’ lawsuit is meritless from top to bottom. The proposed Paramount-WBD transaction raises no plausible antitrust concerns. At a time when the media industry faces unprecedented competitive pressure from dominant big tech companies, this combination will enable Paramount-WBD to better compete, invest, innovate and deliver premium content to audiences worldwide.”
The Paramount spokesman’s statement continued, “Opposing this deal means opposing greater consumer choice, stronger theatrical exhibition and expanded opportunities for creators and workers. That is not what antitrust law is meant to achieve. This politically motivated lawsuit seeks to block a transaction that will increase investment, expand output and strengthen competition. We will continue to vigorously fight this misguided challenge and any attempt to derail a deal that benefits consumers, creators, and the industry as a whole.”
There’s been considerable backlash in the industry to the Paramount-WBD deal: To date, more than 5,500 filmmakers, actors and other Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter opposing the deal, arguing that it would eliminate jobs, raise prices and reduce competition. House Democrats have urged California Attorney General Rob Bonta to “closely scrutinize” the deal, and Bonta has indicated his office is mulling legal action.
Makan Delrahim, chief legal counsel of Paramount Skydance, asserted in an interview published by the Los Angeles Times this week that “There’s a lot of fear-mongering, particularly from people in Washington, D.C. They are running a political campaign. Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction really because of their own antisemitic views.” Delrahim has not identified which opponents of the Paramount-WBD merger allegedly hold “antisemitic views.”
In its June 3 filing, Paramount argues that if the court granted an injunction blocking the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, that would “cause great harm” and that “delaying or blocking the merger would harm competition rather than help it, and it would impose significant economic costs on Paramount.”
According to Paramount, the primary reason for the WBD merger is to gain scale to allow Paramount’s combined streaming service to compete more effectively with leading streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ — a point Delrahim also made in a May 7 letter to California AG Bonta.
“Netflix and other scaled tech platforms stand to benefit from a weaker Paramount and Warner Bros., but consumers, theater owners and talent will suffer,” Paramount says in its filing. “Whatever upside Plaintiffs might see in such an outcome, it is not a procompetitive one.”
The company said that “Competing against highly scaled streaming platforms also requires significant investment in new and exciting content. Indeed, following the merger of Paramount and Skydance, the combined company has nearly doubled its theatrical film output, and Paramount has committed to releasing 30 feature films in theaters annually following the Warner Bros. transaction.”
A hearing in the case is currently scheduled for July 16.
In April, Paramount disclosed in an FCC filing that the merged Paramount-WBD would be 49.5% owned by foreign investors, with about 38.5% of the equity in the new company owned by the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. The three Middle Eastern countries had pledged a total of $24 billion toward Paramount’s Warner Bros. bid.
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