Staggering daily sum Paramount will have to pay in its antitrust battle to buy Warner Bros. revealed

The $110 billion deal price for Warner Bros. Discovery should come with an asterisk now, as it’s virtually a given that Paramount will have to add at least another $1 billion to that giant sum. 

Mere hours after Paramount CEO David Ellison penned an op-ed in the New York Times defending the deal that will unite two of Hollywood’s biggest, and oldest, studios under one roof, he was handed an expensive early loss in his upcoming antitrust trial. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin set the start date for the trial, in which 12 state attorneys general and the WGA West are suing to block the deal, for next March. 

The antitrust trial will begin on March 2 and run until March 19, with each parties’ final conclusions due by April 5. That timeline means that Paramount will, at a minimum, have to pay an additional $1.3 billion, if not more.

In most cases like this, the judge typically doesn’t rule right away, meaning it could stretch deep into April. Starting October 1, Paramount is on the hook for “ticking fees” (25 cents a share) for each quarter the deal is not closed — these are calculated daily, which comes out to $7 million for each day this drags on. 

The trial date is a win for the states, led by California AG Rob Bonta, since they had asked for an April start date, while Paramount was gunning for a November start. Last month Paramount agreed to not close the deal until either the legal case was done or June 1, 2027, which comes first.

“We’re absolutely open to finding a solution out of court, but we also really believe that we’ll win at trial,” Ellison said during Paramount’s quarterly earnings yesterday. “As it relates to the financing, all that is in place, there’s nothing at risk, and so we’re confident we’ll close the transaction, and we’re working towards that as fast as we possibly can.”

Ellison claimed in the Times that the opposition to his deal was motivated mostly by his perceived conservative politics and how that would affect CNN under his watch (with many pointing to the past year of CBS News since Ellison installed Bari Weiss as editor in chief). 

“Unfortunately, I can’t give anyone a view into my heart and mind, but I can share this: I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans,” the Paramount CEO wrote. 

The story apparently didn’t go over well with CNN staffers. “We all have eyes and ears and see what’s happening at CBS. You can’t just write an op-ed and erase that,” one anonymous CNNer told Status’ Oliver Darcy.

Even so, Ellison has had some high-profile defenses trying to score points in the court of public opinion. Last month, AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron penned an op-ed in Variety touting the deal, while Ari Emanuel criticized the states’ antitrust case in the WSJ and has appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in recent days. 

Paramount’s deadline to complete its deal with Warner is March 4, 2027, though that will automatically extend until June 4, since the thing holding it up would be a regulatory issue. Paramount would be on the hook for a $7 billion termination fee if the deal fell through. 

Given that it paid Warner Bros.’ $2.8 billion break-up fee to Netflix for canceling that deal, Ellison could face a highly-embarrassing scenario where he ends up paying nearly $10 billion for nobody to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.