California AG Bonta Cancels Settlement Meeting With Paramount

There will be no settlement talks meeting Monday between Paramount and a coalition of state Attorneys General after all.

California AG Rob Bonta cancelled the scheduled sit-down late Sunday after reports of an August 21 meeting with the David Ellison-led company oozed out.

“Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith,” the AG said in a statement provided to Deadline “As soon as Paramount stops playing games and engages sincerely, my office is happy to meet again.”

News of behind the scenes talks in the bitter battle over Paramount’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros Discovery were actually first confirmed publicly by none other than Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I know there are many meetings that are going on, and there’s a lot of conversation,” the presumed 2028 presidential candidate said on August 21.

It should be noted that Deadline actually heard details of the August 21 preliminary gathering to set the agenda for the August 24 meeting from a variety of sources, if you know what I mean?

Paramount did not respond early Monday to request for comment on Bonta’s pulling of the meeting plug. The New York Times first reported the meeting cancellation.

Though expectations for the August 24 meeting were “intentionally low,” sources told Deadline Sunday, there seemed to be several hot ticket items on the table for the parties.

Specifically, representatives of the 12 state AGs who sued Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery in an antitrust action on July 13 wanted CEO Ellison to sell a swath of WBD’s still lucrative cable channel stable. As well, the elected officials sought to have Paramount and WB remain two separate studios, with Donald Trump pal Ellison ( and to some extent his father and backer Larry Ellison) practically cordoned off from running the place he just bought

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