Operation

Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison faces a pivotal decision: Should he uproot his Hollywood studio — the birthplace of such film classics as “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Godfather” and “Beverly Hills Cop”?

Paramount floated shifting its home base to Tennessee or Texas in July, hoping to deter California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta from waging a legal battle to block Paramount’s $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Bonta rejected the tactic, calling it “blackmail.” His antitrust lawsuit, filed in collaboration with 11 other Democratic state attorneys general, has since stalled the largest Hollywood merger in decades and put Ellison in a jam.

The 43-year-old tech scion — a film aficionado who has spent two decades building his career in Hollywood — has told associates he doesn’t want to leave L.A. But he has signaled that he’s prepared to sell the historic studio lots and move Paramount’s and Warner Bros.’ operations from California if the merger isn’t finalized by next month, according to people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to comment.

The prospect has rattled a region already reeling from steep declines in film production, heavy job losses, empty soundstages and shuttered small businesses.

“It would be devastating,” Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, who represents a district that includes the Melrose Avenue movie lot and neighborhoods near Warner Bros. in Burbank, said of a Paramount move. “We need to do everything we can to protect these important jobs in California’s iconic industry.”

Paramount declined to comment.

Ellison is frustrated after securing approvals from more than 65 regulators worldwide for the mammoth merger that would bring HBO, CNN, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV and TBS under the same roof.

Bonta’s lawsuit stands in the way.

“California is the fourth-largest economy in the world and the best place to do business,” a spokesman from Bonta’s office said. “Strong antitrust enforcement is essential so everyone can benefit from a vibrant economy.”

A federal judge in Oakland temporarily blocked the deal, prompting Paramount to agree not to finalize the acquisition until after a trial or June 1, whichever comes first. Settlement talks collapsed in late August after Bonta accused Paramount of leaking and misrepresenting their discussions.

Paramount has plenty at stake. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín set the trial for March, but the company urgently needs the valuable Warner assets to better compete against tech behemoths. And beginning Oct. 1, Paramount must increase its payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders by $7 million a day, so-called ticking fees that will heap more debt onto the highly leveraged transaction.

Paramount asked the judge to require California and other plaintiff states, including Nevada, Oregon and New York, along with the Writers Guild of America (which also sued) to post a $1.88-billion bond that could compensate Paramount for ticking fee costs. A hearing is set for Sept. 24.

For weeks, Paramount’s most potent weapon has been its in-the-works plan to leave L.A.

Lobbying has been intense, prompting a parade of politicians led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra to urge the two sides to settle the lawsuit.

“It’s a game of chicken,” Kevin Klowden, an economist and managing director at the Melcene Advisory firm, said in an interview. “But I’m not dismissing the threat because it is very real.”

Relocating from Los Angeles would allow Ellison’s cash-hungry media company to qualify for lucrative tax incentives offered by another state. Ellison’s short list includes Tennessee, Texas and Georgia. But leaving its longtime home would be costly for Paramount too, given how much of the talent and deal-making remains concentrated around L.A.

Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development declined to discuss its negotiations with Paramount, but in a statement a spokesperson said the state “remains committed to working with companies across a wide range of industries that are exploring opportunities to invest and grow in Tennessee.”

Early this month, a pro-merger group was set to hold a news conference outside Paramount, but it moved its gathering to a warehouse a few blocks away after anti-merger activists planned a counterprotest.

The pro-merger organization, Neighbors for Strong Communities, was incorporated in Washington, D.C., in June and has lobbed text messages to Californians urging them to press Bonta to drop the case.

Speakers were concerned with just one issue: What would happen should Paramount pull out?

“What are we going to do with all these people who have invested their lives and many generations into building something here?” asked Keyla Wood, who moved from Mexico to L.A. about a decade ago after getting her start in Spanish-language soap operas.

“It’s been one thing after the other: The pandemic, the strikes and then it was the fires,” said Wood, who has worked as a stand-in for Eva Longoria and Salma Hayek. “So many people never work again.”

David Ellison is deciding whether to leave Hollywood.

(Bloomberg via Getty Images)

L.A.’s very identity is at stake, added Daniela Kelly, an actor and dancer who arrived from Brazil two decades ago.

“Everyone in the world sees Los Angeles and Hollywood as the platform for their dreams,” Kelly said. “Imagine if a huge studio with 100 years of history here just leaves? What will we be?”

Businesses like Kelly’s small Kreashen Studios USA, which provides video and podcasting space in Marina del Rey, depends on the region’s entertainment economy.

“It’s difficult financially right now to keep open,” she said. “So I’m pro having Paramount stay because this is the center, the heart of Hollywood.”

But deal opponents and some experts say the merger would actually worsen L.A.’s already bleak production picture.

Paramount has promised to cut $6 billion in expenses — a figure that doesn’t factor in the cost of ticking fees, which would add $650 million each quarter to the $81 billion that Paramount had anticipated paying Warner shareholders.

“We’ve seen from previous mergers that jobs have been lost,” L.A. City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian said at a City Hall event recently.

Combining Paramount and Warner could result in the elimination of nearly 4,500 positions over three years and put at risk an additional 5,865 jobs within businesses that serve the studios, according to an August report by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity.

“When you look at the economic impact, it’s pretty staggering,” Kelly LoBianco, the department director, said in a recent interview. “An estimated $4 billion in economic output lost, and another $550 million lost in tax revenue at the local, state and federal level.”

The merger also could erase $79 million in tax revenue to Los Angeles County even if Paramount stays in L.A., she said.

But state and county tax revenue would plummet further should Paramount dispatch hundreds of its workers to Tennessee or some other state, Klowden said.

“If Ellison moves all the management out and all of the productions out, you’re talking about potentially tens of thousands of jobs,” Klowden said. “That, bluntly, isn’t just devastating to L.A. That becomes devastating to everybody.”

A report commissioned by Paramount from Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. predicted even steeper losses of at least 28,000 jobs should the studio move its entire operation out of state, according to a draft report given to Politico.

Under a less dire scenario, Paramount could shift its corporate headquarters to another state to qualify for incentives but still maintain large staffs in the creative hubs of Los Angeles and New York, where the company has its legal headquarters.

When the Ellison family acquired Paramount from the Sumner Redstone family last year, Ellison shifted operations to L.A., where he and other key executives work on the Melrose Avenue lot.

The threat to pull up stakes has created a disconnect after Ellison has spent more than a year touting how his family’s growing collection of media properties would strengthen traditional Hollywood.

The relocation campaign echoes a tactic used by software giant Oracle Corp., co-founded by Ellison’s billionaire father, Larry Ellison. For three decades, Oracle thrived in Redwood City, Calif., but in 2020, the company moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas, joining other California tech firms leaving in protest of the state’s high taxes.

The elder Ellison announced in 2024 that Oracle would be moving again, this time to Nashville, although that relocation hasn’t been finalized.

Paramount would risk leaving behind a skilled talent pool filled with experienced production workers and entertainment executives, Klowden said.

Fleeing L.A. could prompt “a talent bleed-out,” Klowden said. “Creative types are like: ‘Would I feel comfortable moving there?’ And, ‘What if I move there and something goes wrong? There would be nowhere else for me to go.’”

He pointed to Nissan’s 2006 U.S. headquarters move to the Nashville area from Gardena in L.A.’s South Bay, which dramatically reset the automaker’s workforce as fewer than half of its Southern California employees made the trek to Tennessee.

On Friday, a magistrate judge told both sides to identify dates in late October to meet for court-ordered settlement talks.

Each has motivations to settle — including avoiding a years-long court fight. Bonta has said Paramount must be willing to part with assets to alleviate market concentration, which could lead to a sale of Warner’s New Line Cinema, which has rights to “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Conjuring” franchises, and potentially cable channels such as CNN, Food Network or Cartoon Network.

Paramount, as part of a settlement, could abandon plans to leave L.A.

“All of the parties need to understand what this [issue] means to workers and small businesses,” Zbur, the local Assembly member, said. “I’m hopeful for a settlement that assures that Paramount and Warner Bros. will maintain their operations and remain a significant economic and employment force in Los Angeles.”

Times staff writer Cerys Davies contributed to this report.

Production services vendor Quixote stunned Hollywood in April when it said it was winding down most of its Los Angeles soundstage business, delivering another blow to an industry already buffeted by steep losses in film and TV production.

Now, one of those facilities is attempting to stage a comeback.

Film and TV producer Manny Halley said he has taken over a 125,000-square-foot former Quixote North Valley complex on Montague Street in Pacoima under a 25-year lease with an option to buy, and plans to reopen it this fall under the name Imani Studio. The land is owned by Rexford Industrial Realty, which is not a party to the production business.

Halley’s credits include the “True to the Game” film trilogy that featured Vivica A. Fox, and the BET reality TV series “Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is,” which ran on BET from 2006 to 2008.

In an interview, Halley declined to disclose the price he paid, but said the lease is worth more than $25 million and that the cost to build the facility three years ago was about $19 million. The deal was financed with capital from his Imani Media Group.

“Right now is a unique time for independent producers because we don’t have to sit back and wait for a studio,” he said. “And in order for us to build a library and keep going, we have to keep costs down. So having your own stage is going to keep costs down.”

Producer Manny Halley has taken over ownership of one of the former Quixote North Valley studio facilities in Pacoima.

(Dae Howerton and Dallas J. Logan)

Halley said he was also motivated by the ongoing production crisis in L.A. and the continued loss of industry jobs. His company has shot 18 productions in California, 14 of which received a state production incentive.

“Somebody’s got to believe in Hollywood,” Halley said. “It’s a sad industry right now, and I want to change it.”

He is making a long bet on a market a much larger company has struggled with. Former owner Hudson Pacific announced it was shutting down most of its L.A. soundstages as well as operations in Atlanta as part of a cost-reduction move.

The Los Angeles-based real estate company bought Quixote in 2022 for $360 million, saying at the time that the acquisition would address the growing demand for soundstage space. Quixote was originally founded in 1995.

Though L.A. area soundstages had average occupancy rates of about 90% from 2016 to 2022, their business plunged in 2023 amid the work stoppages of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, according to data from the nonprofit FilmLA, which tracks on-location shoot days in the Greater L.A. area. In 2024, the average occupancy rate was 63%.

“Keeping production infrastructure active and investing in California’s capacity to support film and television is essential to our long-term competitiveness,” California Film Commission Executive Director Colleen Bell said in a statement. “Facilities like this help keep productions here, sustain good-paying jobs, and support the thousands of businesses and workers that make up our entertainment economy.”

Halley said he plans to invest $2 million to $6 million into the facility, including additional staff and LED volume walls. He retained three employees to help run operations and hopes to hire others who previously worked there.

He said he plans to use the facility, which has four soundstages, to shoot his own shows and movies, but also intends to rent out space to other productions, including student projects.

“I just want to give everybody their opportunity to shine,” he said. “I want to give them their own playing field to create and make their visions come to life with affordable stages.”

But even if outside productions don’t rent the space, he said the facility could sustain itself on his company’s projects. Imani Media Group has a distribution arm that has worked with Amazon, Tubi and the major theater chains.

By late September, Halley said he intends to start shooting a “True to the Game” TV series at the Pacoima facility, as well as the BET comedy “Lot Patrol,” which the network recently picked up for an additional five episodes.

“Supporting Black ownership and entrepreneurship across the entertainment industry remains deeply important to BET,” Brian Rikuda, BET’s executive vice president of enterprise growth strategy, business operations, and programming strategy, said in a statement. “As Manny Halley expands Imani Studios into a 125,000-square-foot production home, we’re proud to continue our partnership rooted in a shared vision to create culturally impactful entertainment and expand opportunity in our industry.”

Since early August 2026, several Venezuelan media outlets that have reported on businessman Alejandro Betancourt and his role at the helm of oil company North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) have faced attacks on X from a group of accounts defending his activities, praising Delcy Rodríguez’s administration, and disparaging María Corina Machado.

Hundreds of these responses came from inauthentic accounts that do not appear to be operated by regular users.

Cazadores de Fake News identified at least 75 such accounts on X, resembling trolls, whose activity led to 13 newly created websites posing as Venezuelan regional news outlets. On Instagram, another previously documented network of fake news accounts known as La Fábrica de Desinformación (“The Disinformation Factory”) has also published favorable content about Betancourt and his activities, acting as another front in the same communications strategy.

The analysis found that an influence operation in Betancourt’s favor began to be deployed in August, seeking to improve his reputation while discrediting journalistic coverage of the businessman amid his contacts with Rodríguez’s administration.

The operation remains active, and the number of accounts and fake outlets could grow.

Trolls attack Venezuelan media covering Betancourt

Beginning August 11, journalists and Venezuelan media outlets reported to Cazadores de Fake News that posts about Betancourt were receiving large numbers of hostile responses, sometimes insults, almost simultaneously. The accounts questioned the posts and defended the businessman.

Among those targeted were journalists and social media personalities like Germania Rodríguez Poleo, Norbey Marín, and Emmanuel Rincón, as well as Armando.info, El Pitazo, EVTV, VPI TV, and Spain’s El País. The same accounts also respond to other users discussing Betancourt and, in some cases, to unrelated news.

Under different headlines, the fake outlets reproduced only the favorable portions of the article that portrayed him as an intermediary for Washington.

Based on their behavior and attack patterns, Cazadores de Fake News considers them part of a troll network: a group of fake accounts covertly and selectively spreading propaganda in Betancourt’s favor without appearing automated.

The accounts mix attacks with memes, sports comments, and everyday posts, making them appear more like ordinary users. This allows them to intervene in and discredit legitimate conversations without immediately being recognized as propaganda.

The network’s messages revolve around three main narratives. The first promotes and defends Betancourt and NABEP, the private oil company he leads and which operates Venezuelan fields under new concessions granted by the Rodríguez administration. The accounts portray the company’s activities as an opportunity for Venezuela’s economic development.

The second expresses optimism about Venezuela’s economy and, while celebrating Nicolás Maduro’s capture, simultaneously supports Rodríguez’s performance as acting president. The third, promoted less frequently, rejects Machado’s leadership of the Venezuelan opposition.

The 75 accounts fall into two groups: 62 that appear to be real people, with names, profile pictures, and short biographies, and 13 posing as news outlets.

The apparent personal accounts share a striking pattern: 61 were created between 2011 and 2015, with more than half created in 2013 or 2014.

Most follow between 90 and 200 accounts, have 80 to 120 followers, and have fewer than 300 posts. Some have no posts predating August 2026, despite having been created more than a decade ago. Cazadores de Fake News considers it likely that the accounts were purchased in bulk, a common practice for giving inauthentic networks an appearance of age and avoiding newly created profiles that are more vulnerable to suspension under X’s platform-manipulation policies.

The other X accounts do not present themselves as individual users. Instead, they pose as Venezuelan news outlets with generic names. As of August 19, 13 such accounts had been identified.

Several accounts posing as individuals have posted favorable comments beneath the fake outlets’ posts, creating the appearance of organic approval. Legitimate X users could interpret these exchanges as genuine conversations, even though both sides belong to the same network.

Twelve of the fake news profiles were created between January 2024 and July 2026 and have already accumulated between 5,681 and 18,900 followers. Yet none has published more than 157 posts. Their coverage repeatedly advances the same narratives as the accounts posing as individuals: favorable coverage of Betancourt and NABEP, support for Rodríguez, and attacks on Machado.

The operation extends beyond X. Almost all of the fake outlets link to websites using the same name as their X profiles. The sites are designed to resemble legitimate Venezuelan digital media, with sections for politics, crime, business, sports, and regional news.

Under Maduro, Cazadores documented similar campaigns favoring other Venezuelan oligarchs and their businesses, such as Alex Saab (2020) and José Simón Elarba (2026), the owner of waste-management company Fospuca.

The 13 domains were registered between July 26 and 27 using the same hosting provider, about a week before the coordinated X activity began. All operate on WordPress, and none has a contact page, editorial team, legal notice, advertising, or audience-measurement tools. In several cases, the same image appears on four or five different sites.

One of the clearest examples was the coordinated amplification of a Bloomberg article about Betancourt published August 17. The fake outlets reproduced, under different headlines, only the favorable portions of the article that portrayed him as an intermediary for Washington. They omitted other details mentioned by Bloomberg, including financial sanctions imposed in the United States on one of his partners and allegations involving the supply of power-generation equipment in Venezuela.

Content supporting the same narratives was also published by five fake news accounts and one influential account belonging to La Fábrica de Desinformación, a network of anonymous Instagram news accounts aimed at opposition audiences that Cazadores de Fake News has documented since 2020 as a recurring source of disinformation and pro-government propaganda.

Digital reputation operations benefiting businessmen linked to political power were a recurring feature under Nicolás Maduro. Cazadores de Fake News documented one deployed in favor of Alex Saab beginning in 2020, and in May 2026 identified a network of inauthentic accounts that attacked media outlets investigating José Simón Elarba while praising Fospuca, his company.

The evidence documented here indicates that such operations continue under Rodríguez’s administration.

Who commissioned the operation and how it was financed remain unanswered questions. What is documented is that, in four weeks, someone purchased dozens of old accounts, registered 13 domains, and activated six profiles from a previously exposed network—all serving the same purpose.