Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is sticking by her position that the legality of the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger should be decided in court.
The sitting L.A. councilmember reiterated her support for California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s antitrust suit to block the $111 billion deal in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.
“Los Angeles’ film industry is already in crisis. The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger would deepen it, costing an estimated 4,500 film and television jobs, more than 10,000 jobs region-wide, and billions of dollars in economic activity, according to a new county report,” Raman said. “This is a bad deal for entertainment workers and a bad deal for Los Angeles. That’s why I support Attorney General Rob Bonta’s antitrust lawsuit and stand with the workers fighting this merger.”
The councilmember added, “Paramount’s threat to leave California unless the lawsuit is dropped is an attempt to strong-arm our state. Serious questions about this merger’s legality should be decided in court, not through corporate threats.”
Raman’s statement arrived on the same day that sitting Mayor Karen Bass held a press conference calling for a hasty resolution to the standoff between Bonta and Paramount Skydance. “It is time for all parties to come to the table. The continued uncertainty is not good for workers, not good for productions and not good for the future of this industry,”Bass said.
The sitting mayor added that any solution must include enforceable commitments to keep Paramount and Warner Bros. based in L.A. and to retain jobs, film and TV shoots, and investment in California.
In saying so, Bass followed the lead of movie theater trade group Cinema United as well as the DGA and IATSE, which also have recently asked the parties in the lawsuit to come together quickly and hash out their differences to avoid any further industry disruption.
Raman and Bass are set to go toe-to-toe in the general election in November. While Bass has gained the support of some Hollywood crew unions and industry figures like J.J. Abrams and Samuel L. Jackson, Raman — whose husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, was a writer-producer on 30 Rock and Modern Family — has her own deep bench of Hollywood supporters, especially among writers and comedians.
The mayoral candidates’ statements on the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal arrived just one day after the L.A. Department of Economic Opportunity and CVL Economicsreleased a report detailing how thousands of jobs are at risk as a result of the proposed merger.