作者：雪莉·李（Shirley Li）上周四，在《大西洋月刊》节（The Atlantic Festival）的一场小组讨论中，加利福尼亚州总检察长罗布·邦塔（Rob Bonta）似乎信心满满，认为好莱坞数十年来最大的反垄断案将朝着对他有利的方向发展。他告诉我的同事昆塔·尤雷奇克（Quinta Jurecic），由12位总检察长组成的联盟对拟议中的派拉蒙-华纳兄弟合并案提起的反垄断诉讼正在取得胜利。
By Shirley Li Last Thursday, during a panel discussion at The Atlantic Festival, California Attorney General Rob Bonta seemed confident that the biggest antitrust case Hollywood has seen in decades would go his way. He told my colleague Quinta Jurecic that the coalition of 12 attorneys general who’d filed an antitrust lawsuit against the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. merger were winning their case. The group had persuaded Paramount to not close the deal until next summer, and they’d landed a favorable trial date in March. But, Bonta said, “we are always open to coming to the table.”That seems to be exactly what happened.
该联盟已成功说服派拉蒙将交易完成时间推迟至明年夏天，并争取到了三月份这一有利的审判日期。但邦塔表示：“我们始终愿意坐到谈判桌前。”
Last week, Paramount settled the lawsuit, ending months of negotiations. Though the agreement still has to be approved by a judge, the company has cleared its biggest hurdle to completing its $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The move saved Paramount plenty of cash—the company had pledged to pay Warner Bros. shareholders $7 million for each day past the end of September that the deal failed to close—while appearing to satisfy many of the requests of Bonta and his fellow attorneys general, including keeping both studios in California.
这似乎正是随后发生的事情。上周，派拉蒙达成了和解协议，结束了长达数月的谈判。尽管该协议仍需法官批准，但该公司已扫清了完成其1110亿美元收购华纳兄弟探索公司（Warner Bros. Discovery）的最大障碍。此举为派拉蒙节省了大量资金——该公司曾承诺，若交易未在9月底前完成，每拖延一天就向华纳兄弟股东支付700万美元——同时似乎满足了邦塔及其同行总检察长的多项要求，包括将两家制片厂保留在加利福尼亚州。
Still, Bonta, at a press conference last Monday, expressed disapproval. “The settlement is not a vote of support for this merger,” he said. To misquote a classic Warner Bros. film, this seems to be the beginning of an uncomfortable friendship. Below are four reasons—all lingering questions as the merger nears its finish line.
尽管如此，邦塔在上周周一的新闻发布会上仍表达了不满。他说：“和解协议并非对此次合并的支持投票。”借用一部经典华纳兄弟电影中的台词（此处为意译），这似乎是一段令人不适的友谊的开端。以下是四个原因——随着合并案接近尾声，这些问题依然悬而未决。
The settlement stipulates that the merged company must release at least 30 films a year for the first two years of its existence, and 32 films a year for the following three years, or pay a financial penalty. Is that number achievable?
和解协议规定，合并后的公司在成立后的前两年内每年至少发行30部电影，随后三年内每年至少发行32部电影，否则将面临经济处罚。这个数字能够实现吗？
Hitting those figures could be difficult for a single, combined studio, especially because the settlement states that each year, at least four of those films must be independent productions and at least 20 of them must get a wide release (the number goes up to 21 after the first two years). In 2025, Paramount released just eight films theatrically, while Warner Bros. released 11. The settlement also orders the new Paramount to spend $300 million more annually than it did last year to make films in the United States, rather than producing them abroad, which puts a lot of pressure on the company to generate hits, but neither Paramount nor Warner Bros. has found reliable success at the box office. (Audiences have been inconsistent in showing up to see superhero movies and legacy sequels lately; just look at the underwhelming returns on Supergirl and Practical Magic 2.) Besides, making movies will only add to the company’s ongoing debt: Paramount borrowed more than $54 billion for its takeover bid, and because Warner Bros. already had its own debt, the combined entity owes roughly $80 billion.
对于一家合并后的单一制片厂来说，达到这些数字可能很困难，尤其是因为和解协议规定，每年必须至少有四部电影为独立制作，且至少有20部电影必须进行大规模发行（两年后该数字将升至21部）。2025年，派拉蒙仅在院线发行了8部电影，而华纳兄弟发行了11部。和解协议还要求新的派拉蒙公司每年在美国本土制作电影的投入要比去年多出3亿美元，而不是在海外制作，这给公司带来了巨大的压力，要求其必须打造出热门影片，但派拉蒙和华纳兄弟目前在票房上都未能取得可靠的成功。
（观众最近对超级英雄电影和经典续集的捧场程度并不稳定；看看《女超人》和《超异能快感2》不尽如人意的票房回报就知道了。）此外，制作电影只会增加公司现有的债务：派拉蒙为此次收购竞标借贷超过540亿美元，而由于华纳兄弟本身也背负债务，合并后的实体总债务约为800亿美元。此次合并将如何影响好莱坞本已低迷的就业市场？
How will the merger affect Hollywood’s already flagging job market?
大概率会产生负面影响。考虑到派拉蒙仅为收购华纳兄弟就背负了巨额债务，裁员似乎不可避免。和解协议要求派拉蒙在五年内向一个“劳动力基金”注资4750万美元，以援助被裁员工，但大型企业合并历史上往往伴随着大规模裁员，其成本可能远超这一金额。2019年迪士尼收购二十世纪福克斯导致了约4000至10000个工作岗位流失。
Poorly, probably. Layoffs seem inevitable, considering, again, the amount of debt Paramount has gone into just to acquire Warner Bros. The settlement demands that Paramount contribute $47.5 million to a “workforce fund” over five years to aid those laid off, but giant corporate mergers have a history of massive layoffs whose costs may exceed that sum. The Disney takeover of 20th Century Fox in 2019 led to an estimated 4,000 to 10,000 slashed jobs.
好莱坞的整合意味着制作影视项目的制片厂减少，进而意味着就业机会减少。目前，只有派拉蒙旗下的哥伦比亚广播公司新闻部（CBS News）的员工似乎相对安全：在与美国编剧工会达成的和解协议中，派拉蒙同意五年内禁止在该部门进行编剧裁员。
Consolidating Hollywood means fewer studios at which to make film and television projects, which in turn means fewer employment prospects. For now, only those at CBS News, which is owned by Paramount, appear to be relatively safe: In a settlement with the Writers Guild of America, Paramount agreed to prohibit writer layoffs there for five years.
此次合并将使CNN和CBS新闻归于同一屋檐下，并置于派拉蒙首席执行官大卫·埃利森的监督之下，而埃利森是特朗普的盟友。这将如何影响新闻报道？
The merger brings CNN and CBS News under one roof, and under the oversight of Paramount CEO David Ellison, a Trump ally. How will that affect coverage?
这很难说。一些反对合并的人士曾希望反垄断诉讼能给派拉蒙施压，迫使其将CNN作为独立企业出售，但和解协议仅规定将为该媒体设立一个监督委员会，以确保其编辑独立性。尽管该委员会将由五名拥有至少10年行业经验且政治倾向各异的记者组成，但合并后公司的董事会——由埃利森担任主席——将负责挑选其成员。这种安排能否有效防止公司过度干预，目前尚不确定：对于尼曼实验室（Nieman Lab）创始人乔舒亚·本顿而言，该委员会充其量只是一项公关举措。
That’s hard to say. Some of the merger’s detractors had hoped that the antitrust lawsuit would pressure Paramount into selling off CNN as an independent enterprise, but the settlement simply states that the outlet will have an oversight committee installed to ensure its editorial independence. And though that board will consist of five journalists with at least 10 years of experience in the field and a mix of political leanings, the combined company’s board of directors, chaired by Ellison, will pick its members. Whether such an arrangement will help to prevent any corporate overreach is up in the air: To Joshua Benton, the Nieman Lab founder, the board seems like a PR move at best.
毕竟，正如路透社所指出的，该委员会的决定和调查结果将如何实施或执行，目前仍不明确。
After all, as Reuters noted, how the board’s decisions and findings will be implemented or enforced remains unclear.
邦塔称这项和解协议是“保护竞争和消费者的有力方案”。这最终会被证明属实吗？
Bonta called this settlement a “strong solution that protects competition and consumers.”Is that going to turn out to be true?
同样，这取决于你问谁。加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽森、美国导演工会以及国际剧院舞台员工联盟（一个代表娱乐行业超过17万名艺术家的组织）支持通过和解诉讼来防止进一步的人员流失。该协议至少确保了派拉蒙在未来几年内不会迁出加利福尼亚州，这应在一定程度上维持了好莱坞各大制片厂之间的竞争。
Again, that depends on whom you ask. California Governor Gavin Newsom, the Directors Guild of America, and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (an organization representing more than 170,000 artists in the entertainment industry) supported settling the lawsuit to prevent further job loss. The deal at least ensures that Paramount isn’t moving out of California for the next several years, which should sustain competition among Hollywood studios to some extent.
新投资者的加入也可能有助于缓解派拉蒙目前背负的巨额债务。（该制片厂的支出将很大程度上影响新公司能为观众制作出什么影院上映内容，以及HBO Max与Paramount+合并后的流媒体服务能获得多少订阅收入。）本月早些时候，美国联邦通信委员会批准了外国利益方向这笔交易注入资金，包括沙特阿拉伯、卡塔尔和阿布扎比的主权财富基金。
A mix of new investors could also help alleviate the extreme debt Paramount is in. (The studio’s spending could heavily influence what the new company makes for audiences to see in theaters and how much it earns in subscriptions to whatever combination HBO Max–Paramount+ streaming service.) Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission approved the infusion of money from foreign interests for this deal, including the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.
Semafor上周报道称，埃里森和特朗普的盟友埃隆·马斯克也可能被要求投资派拉蒙。这些资金来源可能会引发外界对派拉蒙将如何运营的进一步担忧，但该公司已承诺，外国投资者的持股将涉及无投票权的沉默股份。就目前而言，对这笔合并接下来走向的最佳判断是：交易本身将会完成。
Semafor reported last week that Elon Musk, an Ellison and Trump ally, may be asked to invest in Paramount as well. These sources of cash would likely lead to further anxieties about how Paramount will be run, but the company has promised that its foreign investors’ stakes will involve silent, nonvoting shares. For now, the best bet on what will happen next with the merger is that the deal itself will close.