Warner Bros. Discovery Shareholders Approve Paramount Skydance Merger

The biggest media merger successful years is inching person to nan decorativeness line.

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted Thursday to o.k. the company’s acquisition by Paramount Skydance, a tie-up that would merge 2 of Hollywood’s astir storied movie studios nether nan aforesaid firm tile and reshape American entertainment.

The “yes” ballot from WBD’s shareholders was wide expected aft nan boards of board astatine some intermezo giants unanimously endorsed nan blockbuster $110 cardinal transaction.

“Today’s stockholder support is different cardinal milestone toward completing this historical transaction that will present exceptional worth to our stockholders,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said.

Paramount Skydance’s connection of $31 a stock values WBD astatine astir $77 cardinal and includes nan Warner Bros. movie studio, nan HBO Max streaming level and a portfolio of cablegram channels, including CNN, TBS and TNT.

Together, nan 2 studios would ain a sprawling room of intelligence spot that ranges from “The Godfather” and SpongeBob Squarepants (Paramount) to “Casablanca” and nan Harry Potter beingness (WBD).

But nan transaction still needs to beryllium approved by antitrust regulators astatine nan Department of Justice. The merger could look a abstracted ineligible situation from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose agency is investigating nan deal.

The woody besides faces increasing pushback from Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, arsenic good arsenic high-profile members of Hollywood’s imaginative community.

More than 4,000 actors, directors, screenwriters and producers person signed an unfastened letter vehemently opposing nan merger, arguing it would harm an manufacture “already nether terrible strain, successful ample portion owed to anterior waves of consolidation.”

“This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing title astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile our industries—and nan audiences we serve—can slightest spend it,” nan signers wrote successful the letter.

Paramount Skydance has rebutted that argument, insisting that nan merger “strengthens some user prime and competition, creating greater opportunities for creators, audiences and nan communities they unrecorded and activity in.”

Paramount CEO David Ellison has attempted to reassure filmmakers pinch a promise to support movies successful theaters for astatine slightest 45 days and merchandise 30 films a twelvemonth betwixt nan 2 studios. He has said Warner Bros. Pictures will stay a standalone operation.

Ellison is nan 43-year-old boy of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a adjacent state of President Donald Trump’s. Trump has publically praised nan Ellison family and called for caller ownership of CNN, starring Warren to raise concerns astir “political favoritism.”

In an question and reply pinch Reuters successful March, nan caput of nan Justice Department’s antitrust section said Paramount Skydance will “absolutely not” person a accelerated way to support because of governmental considerations.

“The thought that someway enforcement has been politicized is ludicrous,” acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi said.

In nan conflict for WBD, Ellison and his financial backers prevailed complete Netflix, which backed retired of a bidding warfare pinch Paramount Skydance successful precocious February.

Netflix did not locomotion distant empty-handed, however: Paramount Skydance paid nan streaming elephantine a $2.8 cardinal termination fee, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.