Blueprint

Week of November 3, 2026. California Gov. Gavin Newsom's Nov. 2 proposal would raise the state film and TV tax credit from $750M to at least $1B a year, extend it through 2040, and add above-the-line eligibility under funding caps. Grant and Reid test the plan against FilmLA's Q3 report: tax-credit projects are about 40% of scripted shoots in Los Angeles, yet total shoot days fell 4.8%. They also...

Week of October 27, 2026. Skydance's Paramount told staff about a one-time voluntary buyout tied to integrating Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, a five-day in-office requirement for both legacy companies, and a move placing Paramount+ originals under Casey Bloys's HBO Max team. Reid and Grant work through what was reported by Variety, TheWrap and Deadline, and where the reporting stops and th...

Week of October 20, 2026. Days before earnings, Netflix cut about 1,000 jobs, named Peter Rice to replace Bela Bajaria as content chief, lost film head Dan Lin, and said it will move viewing reports to an annual schedule starting in 2027. Hosts Reid and Grant agree on the facts and split on what they mean. The episode sets those moves against the pre-earnings yardsticks from episode 42, including...

Week of October 13, 2026. Netflix reports third quarter 2026 results on October 20, followed by a live interview with its co-CEOs and CFO. Meanwhile, Skydance, following its closed Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery deal, claims more than 200 million subscribers. This episode of Blueprint compares Netflix's margins and advertising business with Skydance's debt-funded scale. Reid and Grant start...

Week of October 6, 2026. Paramount's roughly $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery closed Tuesday, October 6, and the combined company will carry the Skydance name, with both studios as subsidiaries. Reid and Grant read the announced leadership chart, the $6 billion synergy target, and the settlement terms, labeling what is reported versus what is their own inference. The hosts argue ove...

Paramount's board has set October 6th to move the company's stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange, with Zaslav telling staff the WBD-Paramount Skydance deal takes effect "by early October." This episode of Blueprint breaks down what's actually locked into the settlement versus what isn't. Hosts Reid Mercer and Grant dig into Variety's September 22 report on insiders at both companies bracin...

Blueprint breaks down the settlement between Paramount, California AG Rob Bonta, eleven other states, and the WGA that clears the path for the Warner Bros. Discovery deal. Drawing on reporting from Deadline, Variety, NPR, and TheWrap, Reid and Grant work through the actual terms: a five-year affiliate fee firewall, a 30-film theatrical mandate with $30 million per-film penalties, a $300 million in...

Paramount, California AG Rob Bonta's twelve-state coalition, and WGA West have been ordered into a late-October mediation session by Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson in San Francisco, the first sit-down since Bonta walked out of talks over leak accusations in August. Hosts Reid Mercer and Grant break down what's actually on the table: Paramount's roughly $1.9 billion bond demand, Bonta's push for 's...

Week of September 8, 2026. This episode of Blueprint returns to Andersen v. Stability AI, the model-as-copy training case the hosts flagged back in episode thirty-six, after headlines this week claimed opening statements had begun. Reid and Grant dig into a Sigma Law Group write-up, spot a scheduling contradiction between a January 2026 filing (trial set for April 2027) and a docket entry dated Se...

The first creative-AI copyright case to reach a jury, Andersen v. Stability AI, starts September 8th, and Reid and Grant use it to unpack a stretch of AI-copyright news: the MPA's August 17th MOU with ByteDance, Disney/Universal/DreamWorks' stalled discovery fight with Midjourney, and SAG-AFTRA's new synthetic-performer rules. They argue over whether a twelve-person jury is equipped to price an en...

Paramount’s stalled settlement talks with California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery merger anchor this episode, as the hosts unpack how a supposedly routine sit-down turned into a high-profile cancellation. Set against leaked meetings, behind-the-scenes pressure from Governor Gavin Newsom, and Ellison’s California-exit threat, the conversation traces why a...

Week of August 19, 2026. A viral, fabricated fight video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt pushed the Motion Picture Association into its first-ever AI memorandum with ByteDance — a deal covered by Variety, Deadline, and the Hollywood Reporter. Reid and Grant break down what the MOU actually fixes versus what it leaves open, particularly around training data and payment. The episode digs into questions...

A federal judge splits the difference on the Paramount-Warner Bros. trial date, setting March 2027 instead of either side's request, and Reid and Grant debate what the scheduling order actually signals. In this episode, we cover Regulatory / Legal Analysis, Deal Economics, Balance Sheet / Labor Impact, and more.

Week of August 4, 2026. Paramount's July 31st joint filing with California, other states, and the WGA sets up a scheduling fight in the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery lawsuit: Paramount wants a November 4th trial date, while the states and WGA are pushing for April 5th, 2027. Reid and Grant break down what's at stake in that six-month gap, including the roughly $7 million-a-day ticking fee drain...

Week of July 28, 2026. Paramount has voluntarily agreed to freeze its Warner Bros. Discovery merger until mid-2027, swapping a two-week TRO for a court stipulation that cancels the injunction hearing outright. Reid and Grant break down the stipulation's terms, the ticking-fee math that pays WBD shareholders to wait, and the WGA's decision to withdraw its own injunction motion in favor of building...

Week of July 21, 2026. A federal judge's 14-day restraining order froze Paramount's $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery merger just two days before closing, and Reid and Grant break down what that actually means. They dig into the Writers Guild's new antitrust lawsuit, which borrows its buyer-power theory from the 2022 Penguin Random House case, plus parallel pressure from EU regulators, Britain's...

California's antitrust fight over the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger escalates this week as AG Rob Bonta hires Milbank litigator Richard Parker, with nearly a dozen states reportedly drafting a joint complaint. Reid and Grant unpack the DOJ's disputed clearance, including reports that career antitrust staff wanted to sue before leadership closed the case following a two-hour Ellison inter...

Week of June 30, 2026. This episode covers the DOJ's June 12 clearance of the $111 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger — and everything that happened behind it. Career antitrust investigators spent eight months on the case, leaned toward recommending a lawsuit, and were cut out of the final decision entirely. Reid and Grant work through three questions the deal still hasn't answered: C...

Week of June 23, 2026. As the DGA ratification vote closes June 25, Blueprint examines the completed above-the-line labor cycle — WGA in April, SAG-AFTRA in May, DGA now — all three guilds accepting four-year terms after studios pushed unsuccessfully for five. Reid Mercer and Grant dig into the DGA deal's specifics: a 24.4% health contribution increase, AI directorial authority language that Deadl...

Week of June 16, 2026. This episode examines the Directors Guild of America's new four-year contract with the AMPTP, ratified in 29 days — the fastest resolution of the current Hollywood labor cycle. Reid and Grant work through the deal's headline numbers: a 35 percent drop in DGA television employment during 2024, a 24.4 percent increase in studio health fund contributions, and a 5 percent wage h...

Week of June 2, 2026. This episode covers Paramount's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery at a $110 billion enterprise value — the largest leveraged buyout in history, carrying $87 billion in gross pro forma debt and leverage sitting at roughly 7x 2026 EBITDA. Reid Mercer and Grant work through the deal's financial architecture and its operational consequences, arguing over three centra...

Week of May 26, 2026. The 2026 Cannes Marché drew a record 16,000 participants from more than 140 countries — and almost no one was closing deals. Reid Mercer and Grant dig into the paradox of peak attendance masking a structural buyer shortage, tracing the root causes through consolidation, collapsed pay-one windows, and retreating studio capital. The hosts argue through three contested questions...

Week of May 12, 2026. This episode covers the back-to-back WGA and SAG-AFTRA contract ratifications with the AMPTP, both closed in under two months following 2023's 148-day strike. Reid and Grant work through the headline numbers — a $321 million WGA health fund injection, SAG's 3% annual raises, a 5% streaming residual bump, and a long-delayed pension merger — before pressing on the concessions u...

Week of May 19, 2026. This episode covers the 2026 upfronts week in New York City, where eight companies pitched ad buyers across three days of Manhattan theater events — and where forward commitments made before a frame is shot will determine which shows get greenlit next year. Reid and Grant work through the real economics underneath the spectacle: Is Netflix's $3 billion ad revenue projection f...

Week of May 5, 2026. This episode covers the $111 billion WBD-Paramount merger, approved by shareholders in ten minutes and now awaiting DOJ and European regulatory clearance. Reid Mercer and Grant work through what David Ellison's acquisition of HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., and CBS actually means for the industry — and who it leaves behind. The hosts argue three core questions: whether the combined pl...