If Hollywood studios flee LA, a disaster movie will follow

Could Paramount’s David Ellison back up a super-sized U-Haul truck and take two historic studios out of California?

Paramount’s CEO, plotting to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $110 billion, says he’ll take his mega-studio elsewhere if California Attorney General Rob Bonta doesn’t start merger settlement talks by Oct. 1, reports say.

That could mean Warner Bros. exits the Golden State, too. Ellison is attempting to buy the iconic studio via the country’s highest-profile merger in years.

Where would they go? Team Ellison suggests Texas, Nashville, Georgia or an unnamed state could be the studio’s new home.

The Paramount board reportedly approved an exit strategy should the two sides stay far apart on settlement talks. That includes a five-year plan to move much of the studio out of state under this scenario.

Ellison may be going “all in” on the highest-stakes poker game in California, or this is a bluff for the ages. 

Either way, the latest revelations mark a dramatic escalation in a battle that already has the country’s undivided attention, not to mention La La Land’s.

We already know where Hollywood, Inc. stands on the deal. A-list stars like Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Stiller, Emma Thompson, Glenn Close, Javier Bardem, Kristen Stewart and more have publicly spoken out against the merger.

They fear the consolidation will mean fewer movies and, by default, job losses across the board for their colleagues. The stars weren’t nearly as vocal when Netflix nearly sealed the deal on a Warner Bros. Discovery merger of its own.

The numbers behind the deal are staggering. Consider the $7 billion “breakup fee” if the merger doesn’t get done before June of 2027. Or the $500 million a year Paramount could save in taxes by bailing on California.

That could fund dozens of Paramount+ streaming originals.

That’s only a sample of the math in motion, and for an industry grappling with streaming churn, legacy franchise failures and the threat of AI, every dollar counts.

The merger’s cultural angle cannot be ignored, and it might explain the vitriol against elements of the deal. Some fear the Ellisons and their Trump ties could tilt chronically liberal Hollywood to the right. 

Would CNN’s left-leaning news brand survive an Ellison makeover? Might Bari Weiss, the groundbreaking news disruptor, do to CNN what she’s attempting to bring to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” as some fear? The merger ramifications expand beyond hard-news coverage.

Ellison’s Paramount craves more movies like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Twisters,” stories with raw Heartland appeal. Paramount recently greenlit a “Days of Thunder” sequel more than 35 years after the NASCAR-based film’s debut.

That could mean a dampened appetite for films like 2025’s “One Battle After Another,” the Best Picture winner that glorified anti-government radicals.

The timing couldn’t be worse for California. Film and TV productions are already suffering in the current economic climate, bloodied by what they deem insufficient tax incentives, permitting bureaucracy, the high cost of living and competition from other states.

“Landman” creator Taylor Sheridan opened the largest film studio in Fort Worth, Texas, last year.

Texas offers “the space to dream big, the freedom to build fast, and a community that still believes storytelling matters,” Sheridan said at the time.

Does that sound like California in 2026?

The Tennessean called Nashville’s rising TV and movie productions akin to “Y’allywood,” powered by superstars like Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. And Superstar Mark Wahlberg is plotting a Las Vegas-based movie studio. 

Hollywood has been synonymous with California since the Nestor Film Company established the first film studio in the region. Local lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been fighting to keep it that way, with mixed results, to be kind.

Losing one or both major studios would be nothing less than a Hollywood disaster film come to life.

Christian Toto is the founder of Hollywood in Toto and host of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast.

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