The Ellison family has been on a quest to reshape American media and Hollywood — their next target: Warner Bros. Discovery, home of HBO Max and CNN.<br>Today on TCF Investigates, Arjun Singh sits down with editors Jeff Bliss and Jim Oliphant to hear about The Capitol Forum&#x27;s exclusive reporting on the states&#x27; merger trial, and why a state victory could be a paradigm shift for antitrust law.

Paramount's Long Odyssey to Own Warner Bros. (TCF Investigates)

The Capitol Forum

From The Capitol Forum, this is TCF Investigates. I'm Arjun Singh. This is the horrendous sound of an IMAX film reel being run through a projector. If you've never seen them, these reels are so large they might not even fit in a conventional bedroom. And in the case of this reel, it can weigh hundreds of pounds. That's because when this film is run through an IMAX projector, it becomes this. I told you what you most want is what you most can't have.

And what you most can't have. Is what you already had. That was a clip from the new movie The Odyssey, now the biggest IMAX release of all time, and the biggest film of director Christopher Nolan's career. Nolan also happens to be the current president of the Directors Guild of America. And for Nolan, this film is perhaps the culmination of another odyssey. For years, Nolan was based at Warner Bros., where he had an office for his production company situated on the famous WB lot.

But at the end of 2020, in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Warner Bros. announced something called Project Popcorn, a plan to put every new movie on their streaming service the same day it hit theaters. It was something that clearly pissed Nolan off. There's such controversy around it because they didn't tell anyone. In 2021, they've got some of the top filmmakers in the world. They've got some of the biggest stars in the world who have worked for years, in some cases, on these projects very close to their hearts that are meant to be, you know,

Paramount's Long Odyssey to Own Warner Bros. (TCF Investigates)

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Paramount's Long Odyssey to Own Warner Bros. (TCF Investigates)

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.