Paramount and state AGs now going full film nerd, arguing over whether Obsession is a "blockbuster"

The distinction actually matters here, surprisingly enough, because the AGs—who are finally moving forward with legal efforts to try to get in the way of Paramount’s efforts to swallow Warner Bros. whole—are arguing (per Deadline) that the ability to make a blockbuster is a unique trait of Hollywood’s five major studios. Which means, in turn, that dropping that number down to four, by having the David Ellison-owned Paramount gobble up its classic rival, will cut into the supply of the bona fide “blockbusters” that theaters rely on to generate profits and keep ticket prices down for consumers

It was Paramount’s attorney that brought Obsession—independently financed, but distributed through Universal’s Focus Features—into the mix, stating that Barker’s film represents changing tides in the market. The romantic horror movie was famously made for a paltry $750,000, and has now generated $429 million at the box office, making it one of the most successful low-budget films of all time. Paramount’s attorneys cited these numbers as “undisputed economic evidence” that filmmakers no longer require the massive financial clout of one of the five major studios in order to make blockbuster money, so who cares if one of the big dogs eats another? (They made a similar argument about the Apple-produced F1, arguing that the existence of tech companies moving into film production has widened film competition enough to be able to tolerate Paramount merging with Warner.)

James Weingarten, the attorney for the AGs, dismissed the existence of individual low-budget hits as irrelevant, saying that “I’m not saying no one can have a super hit or a breakout, but there are five majors that make blockbusters consistently.” (Weingarten doesn’t appear to have given a technical definition for “blockbuster” in the hearing, but in his conception, it clearly involves the massive $100 million-plus budgets that only the five big studios can muster.) He also pointed out a fallacy in Paramount’s reasoning when it came to Apple and Amazon, since even films like F1 (and Obsession, for that matter) are still reliant on distribution from the major studios in order to guarantee serious box office reach. (Although we’ll note that he then kind of shot himself in the foot by reaching for a rhetorical flourish, because his assertion that “Apple makes cell phones, not movies” really does sound like thinking that started running out of steam in the 2010s.)

Ultimately, the courts were spared the need to definitively declare whether a really successful independent horror movie counts as a “blockbuster,” at least for now; Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who was overseeing the hearing, has said she’ll give a ruling on the AGs’ request to delay the sale—which could run it afoul of promises Paramount has made to pay large penalties to Warner Bros. if the process stretches out past October 1—some time between now and July 22, the earliest date the merger could theoretically close.