The WGA has slammed Paramount CEO David Ellison's threat.
Ellison has threatened to move Paramount out of California,
Paramount is eyeing a major merger acquisition of Warner Bros., leading to widespread industry concern and dismay.
The Writers Guild of America has hit back at Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison after he threatened to start pulling Paramount out of California on Oct. 1 if California AG Rob Bonta refused to settle the antitrust suit to prevent the studio’s acquisition of Warner Bros.
“By threatening to leave the state because it doesn’t want the government to enforce the law, Paramount further proves the danger of its outsized power over the industry and what that will mean for writers and the creative community,” the guild stated on Tuesday. “This type of behavior is precisely why the merger should be blocked.”
WGA Lawuit, California Attorney-General's Response To Ellison's Threat
The WGA’s lawsuit, filed a day after Bonta’s lawsuit, insists that the merger would be a bane for writers, diminishing the number of major studios with whom writers could make deals to get their screenplays and TV show pitches produced. The count of possible project agreements would plummet. The WGA, along with Bonta and his coalition of 12 states, is suing to block the $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.
Bonta too has dismissed Ellison's threat, “Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose in court. It didn’t work the first time — on the eve of our July lawsuit — and it won’t work this time.”
David Ellison's Op-Ed
“Great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle,” Ellison wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed “That requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it. And it requires independence. Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause. These were founding principles for both CNN and CBS News, for legends like Ted Turner and Edward R. Murrow, and it is exactly that kind of independence that has always fueled the greatness of ‘60 Minutes.’”
