Paramount closed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery this month, at about $110 billion, France 24 writes. Out of the deal comes Skydance: Warner, Paramount Pictures, HBO, Paramount+, a large television portfolio, CNN and CBS. The bidding war with Netflix began in late 2025. In late September a US federal ruling rejected the 12 states that tried to block the merger on antitrust grounds. That is the article’s timeline, not a box-office score.

In France the question is not whether Skydance beats Netflix or Canal+ on subscribers. It is whether the cultural exception still holds when the counterparty is a global, leveraged studio obsessed with scale. The exception, in France 24’s reading, says foreign films and platforms may sell to French audiences, but they must fund and feed the local creative economy. It is not a slogan. It is a set of duties.

The SMAD regime, from 2021, enforced by Arcom: any foreign on-demand audiovisual service targeting France contributes 20–25 percent of its French revenue to European and French-language productions. A Paramount–HBO operation pools subscriptions. The local duty rises, it does not fall. That is regulatory arithmetic, not a contract signed yesterday at the CNC.

The European Commission approved the takeover on 22 July 2026, subject to commitments, case M.12278. The EU clearance does not repeal SMAD. Nor the theatrical windows. Screen Daily noted, before the outcome, exhibitors’ fear: what happens to Warner as a major that still puts films in cinemas, not only on a platform. Marc-Olivier Sebbag, of FNCF, said the stake is Warner’s survival as a theatrical producer and distributor.

David Ellison, whose family is close to Donald Trump, raises US questions about editorial independence at CNN and CBS. In France the risk France 24 describes is different: a few showcase French films, less mid-budget and independent work, local content treated as a compliance cost. Debt, revenue targets, shareholders can push that way. It is not a verdict. It is a scenario.

The cultural exception does not ban Hollywood. It sends it a bill. Skydance can pay it as investment or as a fine to dodge. For now, French law has not been rewritten for Ellison.

Image: Antoine Taveneaux, Paramount Pictures Studio, Hollywood, 13 March 2011, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The studio gate, not a Warner lot.

Sources consulted: Will Paramount’s creation of Skydance test France’s cultural exception? — France 24; How the Warner Bros takeover could shake up France’s unique film industry — Screen Daily.