Paramount Skydance has agreed to hold off on closing its Warner Bros. merger until June 2027. The pause gives a federal judge more time to rule on a lawsuit from 12 states trying to block the deal. It extends a shorter, two-week pause that Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín already granted on July 20, though it still needs the court’s sign-off before it takes effect.
Under the new terms, Paramount will not take any steps toward integrating its operations with Warner Bros. Discovery until June 1, 2027, or five days after a court ruling on whether the acquisition breaks antitrust law, whichever comes first. The company committed in writing that it “will not take any steps, directly or indirectly, to integrate or consolidate their operations” during that window.
Why Paramount’s Warner Bros. merger got delayed
The agreement also cancels a hearing that had been scheduled for August 3. Both the states and the two branches of the Writers Guild of America have withdrawn their requests for injunctions against the merger. That withdrawal is part of the arrangement. Paramount, the states, and the union now have until July 31 to propose new trial schedules for their separate legal challenges.
The 12 states filed their joint lawsuit recently, seeking to block the deal on antitrust grounds. Their case, together with the union’s objections, is what pushed Paramount toward this longer timeline instead of a quick close.
Paramount beat out Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery back in February, a deal that valued the historic studio at roughly $111 billion, or $31 per share. Regulatory approval had gone smoothly up to this point. The US Department of Justice cleared the merger in June, and the European Commission gave its conditional approval earlier this week. Neither regulator raised the antitrust concerns that the 12 states are now pressing in court.
What the delay costs Paramount
State-level opposition and union pushback turned out to be the harder obstacles. Pushing the merger past the end of September carries a real financial cost for Paramount. The company’s original agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery sets that cost at $0.25 per share per quarter, or roughly $7 million per day.
Paramount has argued that going to trial, rather than settling or walking away, works in its favor despite that daily cost. The company is betting a federal court will side with it on the antitrust questions the 12 states have raised. A favorable ruling would let the merger close once the case wraps up.
With the new pause in place, the fate of the Paramount Warner Bros. merger now rests on how quickly the court can work through the states’ lawsuit and the trial schedules due by the end of July. Until then, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery remain two separate companies, still competing against each other in streaming and television even as their planned combination waits on a judge’s ruling.