The word "halt" made it sound more permanent than this really is.
This isn't a permanent injunction, the judge simply paused the merger for two weeks while they can hold a hearing on a longer injunction ahead of a trial
And even that injunction wouldn't be permanent, it would just keep the transaction from completing until the trial is complete, since obviously if they merge it is hard to unwind should Paramount lose
And yes, states can "just sue" to enforce the law, just like the DOJ could have sued to enforce the law. Antitrust is not a criminal matter, but this is essentially the same thing as filing charges
People who like movies, presumably
Here are a few positives:
Larger movie catalog all under one place, better value bundle due to fewer transaction costs in negotiation. Imagine the extreme where every movie was owned by a different owner. Netflix would not be able to license content effectively.
More risky movies. If a company has more diversified income stream, it can take more risks on new and interesting movies.
More movies. Shared expenses and synergies can produce lower costs and increase supply.
More investment in technology. It makes sense for a larger company to invest more in technology since the business impact and throughput is larger (technology scales).
Less likely to go out of business. Larger and more diversified revenue stream means more long terms security.
Instead of a flippant one sentence snarky response, make the argument or don't comment at all.
Citation. This is not my observation.
I can’t think of a single example where a super large company gets more willing to take risks when it gets larger. Theres probably a few exceptions but I can’t think of any.
as I said in another comment : These large firms do not take risk.
The larger the corporation, the more risk adverse they are.
But sure, look at big tech with a money printing machine, insane margins and revenue. Amazon spends 90b a year on r&d (~14% of revenue). Meta is about 26% of revenue and so on.
That's risk as it's not tied to their core business and most if not all is punted away.
Can you give me a citation of a small company willing to punt 14-24% of their revenue on long term projects that may not bare any results?
Meta essentially replaced myspace, which basically went down hill after being bought out by a much larger company.
R&D spend does not correlate with innovation or creativity. It’s surprising what gets counted as R&D in a big company.
Small companies have to have an innovative product in order to compete with the big fish who operate economies of scale.
Warner Bros specifically, while still a very large studio, has been relatively generous with funding more risky movies, and there is a lot of warranted caution that this consolidation is going to result in streamlining everything into taking as few risks as possible and aiming for broadest appeal and highest possible gross margins, which is a terrible thing for anything that could be considered art.
Comedians for instance get 10 - 25m per special, they were getting a fraction of that before Netflix. They had to sign on shitty sitcoms to make any money
What are you talking about?
That is very much the point. The initial point of bigger company = worse movies.
your most laughable point is the one about risk : no one takes less risk than a huge conglomerate beholden to a board and shareholders.
real risk in cinema comes the cast and crew that decide to forego dinner in order to get their vision to the screen, and the arts are filled with such passionate examples.
Not everyone wants the 1500th star wars or marvel movie, even the fan bases for those releases are tired.
Monopoly => lack of competition => enshittification and abuse.
> Imagine the extreme where every movie was owned by a different owner. Netflix would not be able to license content effectively.
As much as I like Netflix, permanent ownership of movies and series on my side, after one time payment would be hugely desirable. Overall, I dont like this "you just rent catalogues you have no control over" development is all that great.
Someone cares enough to offer $111B...
Those are the same people trying to take another media entity into.
[0] https://theweek.com/articles/880107/why-fox-news-created which is itself kind of a simplistic, preach-to-the-choir piece. But as you said you mostly stay out of politics, I figure it is easier to follow rather than say the full Wikipedia article on Roger Ailes.
Who cares? Everyone should care about these things. It's 2026 and you still have to explain that monopolies are bad? Jesus
Yes I'm comparing youtube to movies. They're direct competitors. My decision on Friday night is often do I go to the movies or do I watch something on YouTube.
> Do you really think a monopoly is going to improve anything for anybody?
They don't have a monopoly on any meaningful product category.
Sometimes companies go out of business because the economics are so bad (e.g. Spirit). I'm not sure if economics are that bad in film industry, but there are benefits of being a certain size or having a larger catalog. Don't people always complain about having to go to many different streaming services to find a movie?
By that reasoning I could have a monopoly on peanuts and it’s alright because consumers can choose from hundreds of other foods.
Warner Bros. releases roughly 20-30 wide theatrical films per year, or about 8-12% of all U.S. theatrical releases (counting independent films as well).
Paramount Pictures releases roughly 10-20 wide theatrical films per year, or about 3-7% of all U.S. theatrical releases.
Hope this helps