The left declares war on Paramount Warner Bros. Discovery merger

The left won’t let the Paramount — Warner Bros. Discovery merger happen without a fight. And California, to no one’s surprise, is leading the charge.

Americans watched Netflix circle a wounded Warner Bros. Discovery last year with interest, not alarm. Hollywood wondered: Would the streaming service turn the fabled film studio into a “content” assembly line? 

That possibility didn’t spur political action. But now, it’s game on, as the Paramount — Warner Bros. Discovery merger nears the finish line.

And it’s all about partisanshim.

Earlier this year, Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Amy Klocuchar pressed Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison to retain records connected to the merger, as well as any ties with the Trump White House.

More recently, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, and Adam Schiff brought up “national security risks” tied to the deal’s fiscal connections with Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.

Now, 12 Democratic attorneys general are rolling up their sleeves, filing suit to stop the $110 billion merger between the Hollywood parties, with California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta as the tip of the legal spear.

Bonta warned of dystopian results that would impact “audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.”

But the main threat is that Paramount Skydance’s CEO, David Ellison, is viewed as a FOT – friend of Trump. Larry Ellison, the CEO’s father, has contribued to President Donald Trump’s political campaigns, starting in 2016.

Paramount Skydance also helped bring the pro-American “Top Gun: Maverick” to theaters in 2022. That, in turn, suggests the newly formed merger might tweak Hollywood programming to placate Red State USA.

Imagine one major movie studio reaching out to the half of the country that fellow studios either ignore, disdain, or mock.

The cultural fear spreads beyond the cineplex. 

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

Paramount already flexed its editorial might over at CBS, courtesy of the new news sheriff, Bari Weiss. Under her rule, CBS covered fraud abuses the other, left-leaning programs downplayed. She also rattled the cages at “60 Minutes,” leading to veteran reporter Scott Pelley’s noisy dismissal.

Weiss could also take control of CNN. Picture a Weiss-ified CNN where Scott Jennings isn’t the only conservative on any given panel. Or a “Reliable Sources” segment tackling PBS’s extreme liberal bias, not the latest Fox News diatribe.

Losing CNN as a progressive mouthpiece, despite its ratings droop, would hurt the left.

Does that explain the zeal behind the new antitrust suit, not to mention the partisan nature of the merger attacks? Is this Trump Derangement Syndrome of the highest order?

Hollywood’s liberal elite have the Democrats’ back on the matter. In April, Ben Stiller, Rose Byrne, Javier Bardem and Emma Thompson, among others, signed an open letter skewering the deal.

“This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries — and the audiences we serve — can least afford it,” they claimed.

Much of the fuss appears to be an effort to use the deal as an election year cudgel. It’s also a way to stop a more politcally-balanced movie studio and news apparatus from entering the chat.

Any time the left’s cultural dominance is threatened, the reaction is swift and punitive. Right-leaning movies get pummeled by movie critics, who lean aggressively to the left.

The 2024 movie “Reagan” earned a withering 17 percent “rotten” rating at RottenTomatoes.com, while general audiences gave it a 98 percent “fresh” score.

Bonta’s lawsuit says competition would be crushed by the merger. That might have once been the case, but the digital landscape is vastly different today. Newer platforms like YouTube now dominate the culture, while film and TV production are fleeing L.A. for redder states.

It’s more likely that Bonta and Co. fear a mega-studio that doesn’t genuflect to the left’s messaging machine.

That’s why this fight could get even uglier.

Christian Toto is the founder of Hollywood in Toto and host of The Hollywood in Toto podcast.