Paramount guarantees Regal and AMC 30 films a year, contracting away the states’ antitrust case

Antitrust fights over Hollywood mergers tend to turn on a single question: will the combined studio make fewer movies? Paramount’s answer is to take the question out of the courtroom and put it in a contract. Rather than argue theatrical supply in front of a judge, David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is guaranteeing it circuit by circuit — betting that a signed release commitment carries more weight than any expert testimony, and that an exhibition sector busy negotiating its own guarantees is an exhibition sector no longer united against the deal.

As Deadline first reported, Paramount has now put in writing what Ellison had promised only verbally for months: a three-year pledge to release 30 films a year in theaters, extended directly to the two largest US circuits, Regal and AMC. The agreements are bilateral and enforceable, reportedly carrying penalties if Paramount comes up short, and they lock in the windows exhibitors prize most — a theatrical exclusive of at least 45 days before premium video-on-demand, and 90 before streaming.

The design is divide-and-conquer. AMC’s Adam Aron endorsed the merger weeks ago; now Regal chief Eduardo Acuna has joined him, urging “all parties to sit down” and formalize the terms, and Britain’s Vue has signed on as well. Every circuit that swaps opposition for a contract erodes the core argument of the merger’s critics — that folding Warner Bros. Discovery into Paramount would starve screens of product. Guarantee the product, and the argument gets thinner.

What the contracts cannot buy is the trade body. Cinema United, the exhibitors’ association led by president Michael O’Leary, remains firmly opposed, warning that the tie-up means “fewer movies, higher costs and, ultimately, fewer theatres.” O’Leary points to the 2019 Disney-Fox merger — which he says shrank one studio’s annual theatrical output from 26 titles to 14 — as the cautionary template, and argues that the roughly $80 billion in debt weighing on a combined Paramount-Warner makes any 30-film guarantee structurally implausible. The rupture is now in the open: the association holds the line while its biggest members break ranks.

The real audience for these deals sits in a courtroom, not a multiplex. Twelve state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, have sued to block the roughly $110 billion combination, with a full antitrust trial set for March 2027. Each circuit Paramount signs becomes an exhibit it can wave at the bench — evidence, it will argue, that theatrical supply is contractually secure — and leverage to press the states toward a settlement first.

A guarantee, though, is only as sturdy as the studio left standing to honor it. Paramount is asking exhibitors and twelve skeptical attorneys general to trust a three-year release promise from a company that would emerge from the deal owing $80 billion — betting the ink dries faster than the doubts.

Tags: Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, David Ellison, studio-deal, AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas

Paramount guarantees Regal and AMC 30 films a year, contracting away the states’ antitrust case

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