A Hollywood happy ending for unnecessary Paramount drama

The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal is going through — and that’s a good thing. We said California Attorney General Rob Bonta should reach an agreement — and he did.

Left-wing activists are upset. “Gavin Newsom hands huge win to Trump and his billionaire cronies,” said Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo. 

“Hate to say it but we all got played,” he added.

They did. Because this was all about politics for Bonta. It was never really about consolidation.

The five-year deal is a no-brainer, from the perspective of saving jobs and protecting the US film industry.

Hollywood stood to lose tens of thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars in economic activity, if the deal fell through and Paramount left for Nashville. It was not just a threat, but a real possibility.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

Gavin Newsom did not want that failure on his resume before a presidential run. While the Paramount talks were going on he made sure to sign post-production tax credits into law — a message to Bonta, and Paramount.

Instead of losing two studios, Hollywood will keep a larger one — with some job cuts at first, but with prospects of future success, as the company retools for the streaming content era.

It wasn’t a complete cave for the California AG. Bonta can say that he secured a commitment from Paramount to produce $1.5 billion of domestic content, plus 30 films per year, rising to 32 after the first two years. 

The AG says he’s still upset about the merger. But his real objection — like that of most Democrats — was that the Ellison family stood to gain control of CNN, in addition to CBS News, which David Ellison’s Skydance bought last year.

Bari Weiss — a liberal who left the New York Times for being too “woke” — took over CBS News and began enforcing real editorial standards. The left is terrified the same could happen at CNN, which has been laughably left-wing in recent years.

Bonta secured an agreement that both CBS and CNN will have independent editorial boards. But he could not force Ellison to leave CNN out of the deal. 

It’s ironic that the same crowd that accuses President Donald Trump of trying to control the media by pulling White House access wants to control the media by controlling who owns what. 

But cooler heads have prevailed, showing California still has some common sense and good will, even if they take a while to turn up.