Rob Bonta was secretly being advised by some of Hollywood’s biggest names behind the scenes of the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal, Page Six Hollywood has learned.
In his negotiations with the Ellison family over Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros., the California Attorney General was receiving counsel from a consortium of Hollywood insiders led by Academy Award-winning producer Charles “Chuck” Roven.
A source close to Roven confirmed that he was talking to the AG, but made it clear that the “Oppenheimer” producer didn’t take a side in the merger: He simply helped Bonta better understand Hollywood’s vernacular and its financial underpinnings.
Roven, who heads Atlas Entertainment, is known for producing blockbusters including Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” and “The Dark Knight” trilogy, as well as David O. Russell‘s “American Hustle,” “Suicide Squad,” “Man of Steel,” “Wonder Woman” and more.
He’s also known in Hollywood behind the scenes as an exec you call when you need your high-profile movie fixed and set back on course. To some, the reveal that he had insight into Hollywood’s business model makes the settlement terms harder to grasp.
“You really need to know the movie business to negotiate effectively,” said a top studio executive, (adding that it was even more odd that Bonta gave David Ellison and Paramount such a clear victory, “It just doesn’t make sense. Did Bonta really think he was getting good terms?”).
(A rep for Roven did not comment, but a spokesperson for the Producers Guild of America said: “PGA and certain members met with relevant officials, including state attorneys general, to help educate them about the work of producers and our industry.)
Take the annual 30-film commitment that the AGs were able to secure from Paramount brass, which Bonta has proudly brandished as the centerpiece of the deal. Paramount and Warner Bros. were already committed to releasing 35 films next year between the two of them. Furthermore, at its peak, it wasn’t uncommon for the Walt Disney Company to release 30 films a year when accounting for the output of its subsidiaries Touchstone and Miramax.
Even more advantageous to Paramount is the language in the consent decree which leaves ample wiggle room for Paramount executives to operate without running afoul of the deal. Paramount-Warner Bros. must have at least four independent films per year while 20% of their output has to be so-called “tentpole” movies (aka Blockbusters). But according to the language in the agreement, a “tentpole” film is one that has at least a $50 million budget — an extremely low floor considering most blockbusters get into the $100 million range — and a wide release of 3,000 theaters within its first four weeks.
The decree also defines an independent film as “either (i) based on an original screenplay or (ii) originated from Film producers outside of the Combined Entity, Disney, Universal, or Sony.” Guess Amazon MGM is now an indie label? “You can release a movie in a thousand screens for under a million P&A,” said the same top studio executive (P&A stands for the marketing budget). ”Is that going to count as a release?”
What seems all but certain is that for the next year, the Paramount-Warner Bros. combo will face a scheduling crunch that could stretch marketing budgets or bruise some A-list egos.
There’s already been some maneuvering.
Late yesterday, Warner Bros. moved its long-awaited “Gremlins 3” back nearly a year — from Nov. 19, 2027 to Oct. 6, 2028.
Additionally, the 2028 animated DC film “Dynamic Duo” was pushed back a few months from June 30 to September 22. Coincidentally, that moves it away from the Taylor Sheridan–Peter Berg “Call of Duty” film for Paramount, which is also slated to open June 30, 2028.
There are currently six weekends in 2027 where both a Paramount and Warner Bros. movie are scheduled to release on the same date (and four more in 2028).
“One thing that really jumps out is the amount of direct overlap between the two slates,” Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabedian tells us. “Obviously this far out the calendar remains fluid, and I wouldn’t speculate on which individual titles might move, but the amount of existing overlap is certainly notable.”