ACCORDING TO LIZ - On July 13, Attorneys General in thirteen states sued to stop Paramount Skydance’s assimilation of Warner Bros. Discovery and the consequential monopolistic narrowing of news media and entertainment viewpoints.
As well, California’s Rob Bonta was particularly concerned about potential job losses in SoCal’s premier industry and economic losses from the resultant diminished draw for tourism.
An emergency motion to block the merger and subsequent rulings put the brakes on the merger until next spring.
David Ellison then threatened to take his Paramount and run. Out of state.
Peoria or Missoula clearly don’t have the necessary ancillary resources, but even major production centers elsewhere lack the infrastructure and depth in supporting industries of the greater Los Angeles area not to mention the broad knowledge base available in the Southland.
Eye-catching stories of combating spinmeisters hit headlines, with Hollywood creatives determined to preserve their way of life and integrity facing off against a Washington DC-created astroturf group determined to protect Ellison’s monopolization of entertainment.
Rashad Robinson of the Committee for the First Amendment fought on Hollywood’s behalf: “The behavior we’re seeing is what powerful corporations do when they are losing control of the story, the more the public understands what’s at stake – fewer jobs, fewer stories told, and even more power in the hands of a few billionaires – the harder the deal becomes for Paramount to defend.”
Last week a much-ballyhooed settlement was announced.
The politicians may be celebrating but many in the workforce are not. An industry friend’s cynical response was: “U$A” i.e. money talks.
Hope is a fragile thing. You can only hold on to it if there are reasons to believe tomorrow can be better. It’s been decades since that feeling pervaded Hollywood.
Oh, there have been glitz and star-studded events a-plenty but if you look to the people who actually make the movies – the grips and electricians, the production managers and PAs, the writers and assistant editors, conditions have slowly and surely deteriorated since its peak following the Paramount decree which pulled power from the existing studio system and allowed independent filmmaking to flourish.
With curious timing, legislation that had been desperately demanded for decades, some sort of federal tax credit to prevent the loss of American film and television jobs to foreign jurisdictions’ lucrative financial and labor inducements, was abruptly introduced as a bill in Congress.
Although states have used various incentives to pull work one from another since the 1990s, until now no federal programs have been in place to counter other countries’ enticements and stop the runway production which costs the U.S. economy tens of billions annually. Not to mention prestige and tourist dollars.
From before the dawn of this millennium, advocates have been pushing for such federal support for the film industry to stop the hemorrhaging. But it wasn’t until the American share of worldwide production plummeted from 51% in 2022 to 39% three years later that the federal government was forced to take notice.
Trump diatribes against our northern neighbor in 2025 called for 100% tariffs on made-in-Canada programming in the name of national security, conflating that entertainment production outside of the United States posed an existential risk not only for jobs and the economy, with his vaunted self-image as the leader of American the Great.
This new Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act contains a plethora of the requests unions, producers and motion picture organizations have dreamed of to revitalize the industry in the country that gave it birth along with the creativity and technology audiences enjoy today.
As proposed, it would allow the entertainment industry, now concentrated into corporate behemoths far from its creative and independent roots, to finally compete with those of Canada and other countries where government incentives have created their own vibrant film industries built on the backs of Hollywood filmmakers.
On a purely selfish level, given Los Angeles County was designated a federal disaster area in the wake of the 2025 wildfires, all qualifying film and television production will enjoy a 5% uplift until 2030.
Drawing on what works elsewhere including such gimmes, when and if it is ever signed into law, the Act would nominally level the playing field. But for whom?
The writers, actors, directors, technicians, and all the ancillary support who actually create? Or the financial manipulators and profiteers with powerful Wall Street support?
Certainly not the taxpayer who, due to the proposed legislation’s stackable format above and beyond existing state and city incentives making it one of the most lucrative in the world, will see money that might be better spent on citizen services lavished on an industry benefiting billionaires.
The trigger moment for this bill reportedly came just last month, just after Ellison pal Trump had some part of his anatomy twisted to publicly support such an incentive.
During the time that the behind-the-scenes wrangling over the Paramount merger was proceeding.
And with an apparent win for their constituents, the Motion Picture Association, IATSE and the Directors Guild of America along with many California Democrats have hopped on board, including the Laura Friedman soundbite:
“This bill is a result of that coalition. It tells every country that has been outbidding us for American work that we are done losing.
“If we want to keep American storytelling in America, we have to level the playing field, and that's exactly what this bill does. This isn't about subsidizing Hollywood--it's about supporting the American worker, one story and one production at a time.”
And the MPA’s:
“Passing this legislation could inject $250 billion into the country's economy and deliver nearly 145,000 new jobs every year across all 50 states. That's a story we can write together by enacting this bill, to ensure that more stories are crafted, created, and made here in America.”
Really?
Depends on whose stories.
The Ellisons are reportedly looking to bring other investors into the fold. According to Semafor, at the top of the list is none other than – drum roll – Elon Musk.
That Elon Musk. The one whose hair-brained convictions tore apart much of the federal government’s infrastructure in a great disservice to the American people.
His throttling control over X, his autocratic determination of what gets posted – hate-vomiting racist rhetoric and egregious misinformation, and what gets pulled – the opposing truth, has already had disastrous impact on public behavioral norms.
Should he now be allowed to place his greasy fingerprints on CNN and CBS?
And dishonor the legacy of Hollywood?
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
