The film, starring Tom Cruise, grossed an estimated $8 million in its opening weekend. That could put the movie on track to lose at least $125 million.
Page D2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 3 October 2026
A federal judge is questioning the antitrust settlement that's supposed to end Warner Bros. as a standalone studio.
As it ran on the front
Warner Bros., the last major studio still answering to no one but itself, died at the finish line of its own merger this month, at the exact moment a federal judge stopped taking the settlement's word for it. It is survived by that judge, who on September 24 used a virtual hearing to ask, in open court, whether the deal that is supposed to clear Paramount Skydance's $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery actually satisfies federal antitrust law. The question remains open.
It is an odd question to still be asking this late. Wire copy that day filed it as a landmark settlement, the word doing the studio's public relations for it. The hearing three days later did not treat the matter as settled law. It treated it as unfinished business.…
…(cont) Warner Bros. is preceded in death by its own last picture. "Digger," starring Tom Cruise, opened the same week the judge was still weighing the settlement, and brought in an estimated $8 million its first weekend — on track to lose the studio an estimated $125 million, the kind of arithmetic that makes "landmark" sound like penny-ante malarkey. A studio that spent a century selling tickets closed out its solo run unable to move eight million dollars of them in three days.
Cause of death is listed as merger, pending. What dies here is not Warner Bros. the asset; that part survives, folded into a bigger company under new ownership. What dies is Warner Bros. the standalone decision-maker, the outfit whose last independent judgment was a greenlight that lost nine figures before anyone outside a courtroom had finished checking the paperwork on how it got sold.
“They settle with the states, settle with the writers, call it a landmark the same day, and three days later the judge they still need to sign off is the one asking out loud if any of it holds up legally. Meanwhile the one movie this company greenlit on its own before the sale lost $125 million — that is the company's last decision as itself, and it is a bad one. When the ink is not even dry and the judge is already skeptical, the "clearing" was for headlines, not the courtroom.”
“This is just standard process, the judge is doing due diligence, nothing unusual about a federal court actually reading a settlement before approving it. And the movie underperforming — that's Hollywood, that happens, it has nothing to do with whether the merger itself makes sense. Although, I guess if the studio can't greenlight one movie right before the sale without losing nine figures, maybe that is relevant to the price. Forget I said that.”
The receipts
· Paramount Settles States’ Lawsuit, Clearing Way for Warner Bros. Merger from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
· Paramount-Warner Bros. merger not a done deal as judge questions settlement from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· Paramount Skydance reaches settlement with states over Warner Bros. merger from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
· Paramount settles antitrust lawsuits over Warner Bros. merger: Report from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.