Hollywood powerbroker Ari Emanuel has come to the defense of his friend and business partner David Ellison, alleging that state attorneys general trying to block Paramount’s deal with Warner Bros. Discovery are threatening to “destroy” competition in the entertainment industry.

Emanuel, CEO of TKO Group and former director of Endeavor, wrote an op-ed published Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal. In it, Emanuel echoes many of Paramount’s key talking points. He says the lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta puts at risk Hollywood, which he says has turned “the United States into the cultural center of the world” and is “an engine of domestic economic growth.” State AGs “say they are protecting competition. Their actions threaten to destroy it,” he says.

“I want to take Mr. Bonta at his word when he says he is standing up for California’s creative community. But that goal is not achieved by decimating one company and hindering the other,” Emanuel writes. “Countless writers, directors, actors, crews, theater owners and others will be worse off for it.”

Emanuel calls states’ antitrust case “garbage.”

“You know an antitrust case is garbage when it ignores some of the fastest-growing competitors in the market,” Emanuel writes. The state attorneys general are “pretending that Amazon MGM, A24, and Lionsgate don’t exist and that Netflix doesn’t lean into theatrical movies with the upcoming release of Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew’ (which I suspect will whet your appetite for more).” Emanuel says Amazon MGM “crushed” him with “Project Hail Mary,” grossing nearly $700 million at the worldwide box office, while Lionsgate’s “Michael” surpassed $1 billion.

In the essay, titled “Paramount-Warner Merger Could Save Hollywood,” Emanuel says the state AGs’ case also ignores the reality that theatrical releases “compete fiercely for the attention, time and money of consumers who are drawn to streamers, YouTube, video games and everything else on a screen. Do you think I’ll let my client’s horror movie premiere on the same day as a MrBeast video? Or the release of the latest ‘Call of Duty’? Or when Netflix comes out ‘Wednesday’?

Last Friday, Paramount revealed an agreement to suspend the deal with WBD for at least several months as it seeks to defend itself in an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general seeking to block the pact. The states allege that the merged company would have an illegally dominant interest in theatrical distribution and basic cable television. The agreement to pause the Paramount-WBD merger until after the trial will potentially prevent its closing until 2027.

The deal between Paramount and Warner Bros. has met resistance from many in Hollywood, including individual actors and filmmakers, as well as unions such as the Writers Guild of America, fearing that the consolidation would result in job losses and a concentration of power in the combined entity. The WGA has filed its own lawsuit opposing the union, claiming it will hurt writers’ salaries and job opportunities.

But Emanuel says the “real threat to competition” is what would happen if states were successful in their antitrust litigation. He notes that Warner Bros. Discovery ended 2025 with $29 billion in net debt and declining revenue. “Does anyone think they will be able to invest in film and television? More to the point, does anyone think they won’t sell their key assets to companies that are not committed to theatrical exhibition?”

Emanuel doesn’t mention it: The Paramount-WBD combination would have an estimated debt load of $79 billion.

Emanuel maintains that damage is already being done to Paramount and WBD. “The damage doesn’t start when the attorneys general win their lawsuit. It has already started. Every day, dollars are poured into legal fees instead of productions. If the case drags on beyond September, Paramount may be forced to pay a huge fee, enriching hedge funds, not creatives.” That’s a reference to the $7 million per day payment Paramount agreed to give to WBD shareholders if the deal doesn’t close by Sept. 30.

According to Emanuel, even within the “artificially narrow framework” of the states, a 27% share of the feature film box office (his estimate of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. market share) “does not alone establish that this merger will substantially lessen competition. The combined company has committed to at least 30 theatrical releases per year with a minimum exclusive theatrical window of 45 days and has proposed making that commitment legally binding.” Emanuel says, “That kind of multimillion-dollar commitment is not something a company makes if it intends to exert market power over suppliers or distributors.”

“Paramount can likely remain a competitor on its own thanks to David Ellison’s passion for film,” Emanuel says in the op-ed. “But it will be a smaller company, without the ability to scale Paramount+, meaning it can’t spread the cost of content across a broader audience and commission the additional films and series that a global platform requires.”

Emanuel ends his essay with “a frank talk.”

“I am a lifelong Democrat, as are many of my friends and, yes, my family. I hear the passionate concerns about CNN and the politics surrounding this transaction,” he writes. “But antitrust law cannot be a tool for resolving arguments, whether made by a Democrat or a Republican. Those issues must be debated directly and on their own merits.”

Bonta and the other 11 state attorneys general “should drop this case and go back to enforcing the laws as they are written,” Emanuel believes. “Let Hollywood creatives get back to trying to rip each other’s heads off at the box office, on streaming, online and everywhere else we compete. It’s what we’re best at.”