With David Ellison this close to sealing his $111 billion megadeal to merge two of Hollywood’s historic studios, chatter has turned to a more grim question: How many jobs will be impacted?
The big picture number is some $6 billion in synergies that Team Ellison sees in combining Paramount and Warner Bros. as the corporate, administrative, tech and resource functions of the companies are merged.
But what happens when one major studio devours another matters even more in the entertainment industry’s home base, Los Angeles County, which is already grappling with big declines in film and TV shoots in the area, as well as emptying soundstages and the collateral damage to ancillary industries (from catering to costuming to VFX houses) from large-scale productions disappearing or moving to tax-friendlier locales.
Local officials have hosted tense town halls framing the deal in existential terms, activist groups have buzzed Paramount’s iconic Melrose Gate with anti-merger mobile billboards and a Jane Fonda-led celebrity grassroots protest effort has fired up a base of resistance. That doesn’t count what’s happening up in Sacramento, where California attorney general Rob Bonta is said to be prepping a legal challenge to the merger in coordination with multiple states even as Trump’s Justice Department has given a greenlight to Ellison.
Closer to Hollywood’s home, Los Angeles’ Department of Economic Opportunity has taken out its own calculator and started running the numbers. And a stark picture is emerging of the numbers of jobs that could be impacted in the County alone. “The merger places about 2,495 jobs in Greater Los Angeles County and about 6,000 globally at potential risk, mainly in corporate, tech, real estate, and other shared functions due to duplicative roles across the two companies,” read a June 18 report led by Kelly LoBianco’s department and delivered to the County’s board of supervisors.
The report delivers a granular window on the exposure that Paramount and Warner Bros.’ L.A. workforce faces to overlap and possible consolidation cuts. It finds that 13 percent of Warner Bros. Discovery’s workforce is located in the greater Los Angeles, while 17 percent of Paramount’s workforce is located in the area. Most of those workers are in the studios sector spread out on the 65-acre Paramount lot as well as across around 140 acres owned by Warner Bros. divisions. All of the yellow in the below chart is the Los Angeles area workers at each company:
The County’s report also looked at which geographic regions have the most potential overlap among shared function capacity (i.e. the same job roles in two places). Once again L.A. has the largest concentration of such job roles. “Los Angeles County is exposed because it contains the largest single concentration of overlapping enterprise and commercial operations roles in the transaction, approximately 2,500 roles performing comparable work in the same market. This estimate should not be read as a layoff forecast,” the report reads.
By contrast, Paramount has made the case that the deal will be an economic driver for the entertainment industry. And David Ellison sent a formal letter to California lawmakers Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Laura Friedman in March pledging to create a “stronger Hollywood” including by “preserving and potentially increasing jobs.”
“The Los Angeles area provides some of the most talented and well-trained film and television workers in the world, and it is my expectation that the commitments I have made will preserve and expand good-paying film and television jobs in the area,” Ellison wrote in the Feb. 28 letter. Paramount did not reply for comment on the L.A. County report.
Additionally, the County’s report also appears to take aim at one of the central argument’s that Paramount has been making to the industry. Namely, that it’s going to ramp up production to release a combined 30 movies a year and 170 television shows.
On Paramount’s early May earnings call, Ellison noted, “We are firmly committed to 30 theatrical films per year. If you look at the schedule, we have 15 films on the calendar to release this year, up from 8 last year.” The mogul signaled a franchise focus across film and TV, adding, “Under those studios will be some of the most beloved franchises of all times, including Harry Potter, Top Gun, Star Trek, Looney Tunes, Game of Thrones, Yellowstone.“
The economic department notes that while there’s a pledge to up production output, that may not benefit L.A. or even California due to the nature of the global race for tax incentives. The report points to the dearth of features produced in the Golden State last year.
“Of the nineteen Paramount and Warner Bros. theatrical releases in 2025 reviewed, only one film (One Battle After Another) was principally filmed in California (in Eureka), while the remainder were produced across a range of domestic and international locations including Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, New York, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Bulgaria, New Zealand, France, and South Africa,” the report states.
Notably, this assessment isn’t the final word from the County. The June 18 report was deemed the 60 Day check in. At 120 Days, about mid-August, the economic department is expected to deliver an analysis looking at the longer-term effects of how Paramount’s tie-up with Warner Bros. will impact the larger production landscape. It’s unclear, however, if the megadeal will be closed by then.
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