David Ellison Won’t Appear at Senate Hearing Over Warner Bros. Deal Due to a Death in the Family Film Shoots Are Down in U.S. This Year, Except In New Jersey A Senate hearing over Paramount‘s blockbuster $111 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery will move forward without the sale’s primary player David Ellison. The mogul’s Paramount policy team informed Sen. Cory Booker, the top Democrat on the Senate antitrust subcommittee, that Ellison won’t be able to attend the Washington, D.C. hearing due to an undisclosed death in the family. “Regretfully, Mr. Ellison is unable to be in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, as he is attending a funeral due to a death in the family,” Paramount policy exec Ted Lehman wrote in a reply to Booker. A studio rep declined to elaborate on the circumstances of that funeral. Lehman added, “As discussed in person with you earlier this year and in our written statement to the Antitrust Subcommittee at your request, our view on the proposed Paramount Skydance/Warner Bros. Discovery deal is quite straight forward: We believe the transaction should be reviewed on the merits. And on the merits, the transaction is procompetitive.”
Published: April 15, 2026 2:47 pm
Source: The Hollywood Reporter — Read original