Sen. Cory Booker is escalating congressional pressure on Paramount Skydance’s planned purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, setting a Wednesday spotlight hearing and inviting Paramount chief executive David Ellison to testify as opposition to the $110 billion deal spreads from Capitol Hill to Hollywood and movie theater owners. The hearing lands days before Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders are due to vote on the transaction on April 23, with U.S. and U.K. regulators already examining its competitive impact.
Booker has argued for weeks that the merger deserves close scrutiny. In a February statement, he said the transaction was “far from settled” and pledged to use Congress’s oversight authority to examine it. He later joined Senate Democratic leaders in a record-preservation demand to Ellison, signaling concern about how the deal was pursued and how it could reshape jobs, creative output and bargaining power across the industry.
The pressure has widened since the original report. The Justice Department has sent subpoenas as part of its antitrust review, seeking information about studio output, content rights, streaming competition and the effect on theaters. Acting antitrust chief Omeed Assefi told Reuters last month that the review would “absolutely not” get easier because of politics, pushing back on claims that Paramount’s leadership has an inside track in Washington. Britain’s competition watchdog has also said it expects to open a Phase 1 probe in the coming weeks, with public comments due by April 27.
Outside government, the resistance is getting louder. More than 1,000 actors, writers, directors and producers have signed an open letter urging regulators to block the deal, warning that another round of consolidation would shrink creative opportunities and cut jobs. At CinemaCon this week, Cinema United chief executive Michael O’Leary said the merger would hand too much control over release schedules, theatrical windows and catalog access to a single company, pointing to the drop in wide releases after Disney absorbed Fox.
Supporters still see a strong financial case. Proxy adviser Glass Lewis has recommended that Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders vote for the deal, citing the certainty of Paramount’s $31-a-share cash offer, though it urged investors to reject David Zaslav’s proposed payout package. Paramount has said the combined company would support theatrical distribution and create new opportunities for creators, while Ellison has promised about 30 theatrical releases a year.
