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The Option

The Option

Episode 124: Mike Schur Says the Paramount-WBD Merger Kills Writers

Aug 25, 2026 · 4m

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About this episode

Mike Schur — showrunner of Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, currently on an overall deal at Universal Television — has gone public with a detailed case against the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Schur argues the deal is existential for writers and the broader Hollywood workforce, drawing a direct line to the Disney–Fox merger of 2019 as a precedent. For agents, showrunners, studio executives, and anyone whose leverage depends on having multiple buyers in the market, the argument has concrete deal-making implications.