The Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal Could Cost California Thousands of Jobs — But Paramount Says That's Exactly Why It Has to Happen
Los Angeles County commissioned an economic impact report on the ongoing Paramount purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, and the numbers are not encouraging for California workers. The report, authored by CVL Economics, estimates the merger could put 4,500 film and TV production jobs at risk in the state, along with $1.26 billion in wages. Zoom out to include producers, agents, and equipment rental workers, and the wider statewide estimate climbs to 10,360 jobs.
Paramount's response to all of this? Essentially: our point exactly.
A Paramount spokesperson told Variety that "L.A. County's own economic report underscores what we have been saying all along: our industry is in decline, production is down and jobs are being lost — and lost for good if we don't act." The company has framed the merger not as a cause of California's production woes, but as a potential remedy — pointing to pledges of 30 movies per year between the two studios, $30 billion in annual production investment, and a commitment to longer theatrical windows.
It's a bold rhetorical move: using a report that documents potential harm from your deal to argue the deal is necessary. Whether it holds up depends a lot on whether you trust the promises attached to it.
The broader context does support one part of Paramount's argument. California has already lost 52,000 production jobs over the last four years, with production migrating to Georgia, New Jersey, the United Kingdom, and other locations offering more competitive tax incentives. That's a real and ongoing crisis that predates any merger conversation.
The CVL Economics report also paints a sobering picture of the independent film market specifically. The number of films acquired at Sundance and subsequently released theatrically dropped from 104 in 2019 to 53 in 2025. Meanwhile, the share of U.S. theatrical releases that reached screens without being acquired at all rose from 4.7% in 2021 to 21% in 2025 — meaning more filmmakers are self-distributing out of necessity, not choice. As the report's authors put it: "Independent films are still reaching theaters, but producers are increasingly doing so without a buyer assuming the cost and risk of release. A smaller acquisition market means fewer opportunities to sell a completed film and transfer that risk to a distributor — making independent production a more difficult and financially exposed pathway."
It's worth noting that neither Warner Bros. nor Paramount have been major players in acquiring independently produced completed films in recent years anyway. That space has largely belonged to specialty labels. Warner Bros. actually launched a new one — called Clockwork — in 2025, following the long-ago closure of Warner Independent Pictures back in 2008. Paramount, for its part, shut down its prestige arm Paramount Vantage in 2013, a decision made under the Redstones, not under current leadership David Ellison.
The number of companies releasing films in theaters has actually grown, from 308 in 2015 to 365 in 2025. But the number acquiring films produced by others has shrunk, from 166 to 149 over the same period. More distributors, fewer buyers. The market is fragmenting in ways that don't necessarily benefit the people making the films.
The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is still ongoing as of August 2026. The job loss figures from CVL Economics are estimates, not confirmed outcomes. What happens to California's production workforce will depend on a lot of variables that no report can fully predict — including whether Paramount's pledges translate into anything concrete once the deal closes.
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