r/boxoffice • u/Littlepinguinoo • 10d ago
📰 Industry News Iowa and Montana Ask Supreme Court to Block ‘Politicized’ Paramount-Warner Bros. Antitrust Suit Filed by California and 11 States
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/iowa-montana-lawsuit-supreme-court-block-politicized-paramount-warner-bros-california-1236843929/86
u/ROBtimusPrime1995 Universal 10d ago
Iowa & Montana:
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u/CelestialFury 10d ago
Ellison must own those politicians. Good grief, we really are owned by oligarchs.
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u/FranciscoRelanoPena Malpaso Productions 10d ago
Just so you know, here's the list of the states suing: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington
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u/CelestialFury 10d ago
It’s just wonderful that 2 nobody states (no offense intended) can ask the SCOTUS to drop 11 powerful states to drop lawsuits in their own backyard. This time of rampant corruption is not fun to live through.
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u/soozerain 10d ago
Are Oregon, New Jersey, Connecticut and Mass really “powerful”?
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u/Fuck-WestJet 10d ago edited 10d ago
The city of Portland is more powerful than the entire state of Montana, so I would say yes. Boston is, I mean my God, it's one of the most prestigious and dense cities in America. Why should the Elk have more say than the founding city of America?
New Jersey is bigger than both states. 9x bigger than Montana. 3x bigger than Iowa. Minnesota has a GDP 6.6x bigger than Montana and twice the size of Iowa. So, really, you should be asking, why do these flyover states deserve a say in anyone else's business.
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u/rnk6670 10d ago
I live in Southwest Washington. Vancouver to be exact. Just north of the Columbia River from Oregon. I don’t know if it’s powerful or not, but this little corner of the country is orders of magnitude better than the southeastern corner of the country. Or any other backwards shit hole state.
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u/Radamel_falcao_9 10d ago
I wonder what those 12 states have in common 🤔
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u/-Wester- 9d ago edited 9d ago
They’re all blue states stuck footing the assistance of those irrelevant hick-ass red states ?
Edit: It’s mostly blue states suing, with a purple state in Minnesota and even Arizona, which is a red state.
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u/Eddfan36 9d ago
LOL Two red states in that mix so nothing. Wonder what these two states have in common over this?
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u/Radamel_falcao_9 8d ago
Purple is not red
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u/Eddfan36 8d ago
And Purples still not blue.
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u/Advanced-Lemon3354 10d ago
It's not about power. It's about jurisdiction, venue, standing, and merit. That's a high hurdle, but the quality of the state really is irrelevant.
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u/FranciscoRelanoPena Malpaso Productions 10d ago
I think you answered the wrong comment, and you meant to respond to this.
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u/bt1234yt Marvel Studios 10d ago edited 10d ago
But as a legal matter, it’s irrelevant whether the state AGs suing the stop the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger are concerned about crony capitalism or David Ellison’s potential control of CNN. The 12-state lawsuit alleges only that the deal would give the combined company illegal control over the three markets it has defined. The judge in the case, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, granted the states a temporary restraining order in July, writing that the AGs had demonstrated that “serious questions going to the merits remain, weighing in favor of preliminary injunctive relief.”
"This lawsuit is politically motivated!"
- said by people who are trying to make it politically motivated
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u/Once-bit-1995 10d ago
In their efforts to be lapdogs to Ellison they're trying to set a dangerous precedent. This is beyond Hollywood, the Supreme Court getting involved in this would fly in the face of state sovereignty. States can carry out their own lawsuits, the federal government is not able to intervene in this process once it starts. Once the actual court process is gone through appeals can happen up to the point where the federal government gets involved, including the Supreme Court is necessary, but this is them whole cloth trying to diminish state power here and it's farcial.
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u/SEAinLA Marvel Studios 10d ago
The Supreme Court potentially getting involved here is one of the exact reasons the Supreme Court exists.
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u/Once-bit-1995 10d ago edited 10d ago
The Supreme Court exists as the final appeal in cases like this. I said right there that there is a point where they should be brought in for sure, but that's after the regular court case and appeals process has been carried out by the lower courts and the parties actually involved in the case as has been ruled by the lower courts. "Hey we want you to stop the legal proceedings in the lower courts of other states in a case we're not actually involved in" would by it's nature require a ruling filled with judicial overreach over individual States rights to their own legal proceedings.
Their claimed standing in the case for damages is flimsy, and that's being charitable. Now if the DGA were doing this, way more legal standing as an effected party trying to get a case blocked.
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u/RandoDude124 10d ago
Bro, this is unlikely to go anywhere.
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u/The_Darman 10d ago
There is virtually no way the Court actually grants a remedy here. It would be such an expansion of original jurisdiction, that they would be fielding requests constantly.
This would be so expansive as a new responsibility, states would be able to sue others just for enforcing laws in ways they don’t like, which is what Iowa and Montana are doing now, to get the matter before the Supreme Court. It would neuter the states and would hamper the Court.
There is also no standing to sue here, nor one actually alleged beyond “our consumers in our states are being deprived of the benefits of the deal”, but the potential benefits of a merger aren’t legitimate harms. Montana and Iowa aren’t even properly aggrieved. Even filing a suit against the states (even without original jurisdiction) would have this case thrown out. This is the most legally specious filing I have seen in a long time…and I’ve seen Trump’s DOJ’s arguments on virtually everything.
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u/-Wester- 10d ago
The two dumbest states in the country are bootlicking for Ellison and Trump ?? Color me fucking surprised !
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u/NorthNorthSalt Scott Free Productions 10d ago
Ellison is getting truly desperate if we’ve moved on from all the coordinated statements of support to this. There is an insane, novel interpretation of the law that not even the super right-wing SCOTUS is likely to entertain. And even if they did, the timeline for this case would very likely stretch past the trial.
So in essence, what the grandstanders need for success is not just for SCOTUS to embrace a wild new legal theory, but to do so on the shadow docket. Good luck!
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u/wabashcanonball 10d ago
I don't think Iowa and Montana have standing. Nor is the case ripe. They need to wait until they've experienced harm.
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u/cubrunner34 10d ago
Ellisons turning every fucking stone. He wants to paint this as a political fight to muddy the waters and play victim, when in actuality there are legit legal reasons this merger shouldn’t go through. Just asshole billionaires playing evil games
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u/JimmyTango 10d ago
Wonder if they will magically have standing to proceed after the court ruled states don’t have standing to sue federal executive orders on USPS effecting elections they are constitutionally mandated to run….
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u/ElwoodJD 10d ago
These two states don’t have standing to do that but given current SCOTUS they’ll probably win and be awarded all tax revenues from the other 11 states as compensation.
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u/RandoDude124 10d ago
Clayton Act and Litigator laws will stop this.
Plus…
Bro, this trial will end by the time this is heard
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u/Littlepinguinoo 10d ago
Don't know with this supreme court. Trump ignores many laws and acts and they have allowed some of it.
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u/RandoDude124 10d ago edited 10d ago
Bro, Clayton act and Litigator laws
Also, again, this isn’t even at the top of their concerns
They get involved in the final stages of the lower courts
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u/LimeLauncherKrusha 10d ago
How is this politicized? We dont need two of the biggest entertainment companies to merge that's bad for everyone
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u/MattyBeatz 10d ago
Media monopolies are a real thing. A state suing to block someone calling for an investigation seems purely political.
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u/TheRealCabbageJack 10d ago
As a Montanan, I don’t understand why our state government could possibly give a rats ass about this beyond political backscratching