Paramount Skydance and California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office are due to meet on Monday to discuss settling the state antitrust case blocking Paramount's $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal is currently frozen pending a March trial in federal court in Oakland, and pressure to reach a negotiated settlement has been building from unions, a state governor and cinema operators alike.

Bonta led a 12-state coalition that sued in July, arguing the merger would improperly narrow competition in theatrical distribution and basic cable, since it would combine two of Hollywood's five major studios and two of the top three cable programmers. He has said he is open to talks but that Paramount has not yet offered adequate structural remedies, dismissing the studio's behavioural pledges—such as releasing 30 films a year for three years and keeping them exclusively in cinemas for 45 days—as historically unenforceable. A judge has asked both sides to name potential magistrates for mediation by next Wednesday, while Governor Gavin Newsom, the Directors Guild of America, IATSE, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and cinema trade group Cinema United have all voiced support for a settlement; the Writers Guild of America, which has filed a related suit set for the same March trial, would also need to be part of any broader resolution.