Paramount says it'll wait until June to take over Warner Bros. if it has to

“Halting this merger while our case proceeds is a critical victory in our efforts to uphold the law and protect the film and television industries,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a press statement, per Variety. “I look forward to continuing our case to stop this illegal merger.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that anyone is getting a break from near-daily updates about Paramount’s ongoing efforts to own as much of the media ecosystem as possible. If anything, this seems like a major escalation in the legal fight. That being said, the probability of the merger going through—which was once presented as a bleak inevitability—is also looking less certain than ever. When the initial pause in the merger was granted, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin wrote that “the proposed merger is likely to violate antitrust laws.” Still, Paramount is presenting today’s development as a win, writing in a statement, “This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached.”