California Suffers Massive Blow as Another Major Company Leaves After 114 Years

Paramount Skydance is considering moving its headquarters and a large share of its California work beginning Oct. 1, 2026, if it does not settle a multi-state antitrust lawsuit aimed at blocking its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a TMZ report.

Paramount Pictures dates to 1912, when Adolph Zukor founded Famous Players. A 1916 merger with the Jesse L. Lasky Company tied the company to Hollywood production. Construction of the Melrose Avenue lot began in 1926 on 26 acres.

The lot now covers about 65 acres, with roughly 30 soundstages, a New York Street backlot, and a large water tank. It is the only major studio lot still inside Hollywood proper.

After Skydance’s 2025 acquisition of Paramount Global, headquarters functions moved onto the Los Angeles lot, though the company still lists a New York address in some filings and keeps Santa Monica offices. Paramount Skydance reported about 17,600 employees worldwide at the end of 2025, with a large share of studio work in California.

CEO David Ellison told senior executives in early August that a headquarters move would start first if the merger was still unresolved by Sept. 30, followed by a multi-year shift of most studio jobs. The company has also discussed selling the Paramount or Warner Bros. lots.

Oct. 1 is also when a contractual “ticking fee” of $7 million a day to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders would begin until the deal closes. A trial in the states’ case is set for early 2027.

TMZ reported that the L.A. mayor’s office and the California attorney general’s office were sources for the relocation talk.

A preliminary analysis by the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation’s Institute for Applied Economics, dated Sept. 10 and commissioned by Paramount, estimated that an initial relocation phase from Oct. 1, 2026, to Sept. 30, 2031, could cost 2,750 to 5,550 job-years and $1.01 billion to $2.03 billion in output.

A full move of headquarters and other California operations could mean the permanent loss of about 28,990 to 57,980 full-time jobs statewide and $10.6 billion to $21.2 billion in annual output, with state and local tax revenue down roughly $585 million to $1.17 billion a year.

Possible destinations named in reporting include Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, states with film and television tax incentives. The company has not announced a completed departure.

The threat is tied to the merger fight, not a finished moving van. If the lawsuit remains unresolved past the deadline Ellison set, the first piece to leave would be headquarters, with studio jobs following over years.

For a company rooted in Hollywood since the silent era, even a planned exit is a blow to California’s claim on the industry. The lot on Melrose is still there. The question in the report is how long the corporate center stays with it.