I don't think there will be an investigation because it looks like a court decision.
VARIETY: Paramount-Skydance merger collapsed in the final moments, and will lead to layoffs and austerity measures
- Thread starter Citiprime
- Start date
An official veneer was placed over what was an extortion attempt by the Trump regime because they interviewed Kamala Harris on 60 minutes. If Paramount didn't pay, they couldn't get their merger. They paid the bribe, and the problem is supposed to go away.
It will be an uphill battle proving bribery.
There's always the option of settling without admitting guilt. (To be fair to Paramount, Trump put them in a difficult position. There was no way this merger was going to close in a timely manner WITHOUT paying him.)
Last edited:
I would happily write the next Star Trek film for free if it helps with minimising layoffs at Paramount? I’m sure that with a little help from @Christopher , who wouldn’t have to be paid much, I could whip something up. @Jayson1 could help out too. 
However, Christopher is a novelist, and likely doesn’t know how to write TV/movie scripts, though I think that he can also write comics, so they could just give Christopher the rights to the movie novelisation/graphic novel where he could negotiate a larger share of profits with a third party publisher to make up his ‘dollar’?
I am unsure how to deal with the issue of residuals, though.
However, Christopher is a novelist, and likely doesn’t know how to write TV/movie scripts, though I think that he can also write comics, so they could just give Christopher the rights to the movie novelisation/graphic novel where he could negotiate a larger share of profits with a third party publisher to make up his ‘dollar’?
I am unsure how to deal with the issue of residuals, though.
I would happily write the next Star Trek film for free if it helps with minimising layoffs at Paramount? I’m sure that with a little help from @Christopher , who wouldn’t have to be paid much, I could whip something up. @Jayson1 could help out too.
However, Christopher is a novelist, and likely doesn’t know how to write TV/movie scripts, though I think that he can also write comics, so they could just give Christopher the rights to the movie novelisation/graphic novel where he could negotiate a larger share of profits with a third party publisher to make up his ‘dollar’?
I am unsure how to deal with the issue of residuals, though.
I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this if I were you.
I’m not losing any sleep, I’m only trying to be helpful just incase other people are? I actually think that I could write a very good Star Trek movie, I could even do a Star Wars crossover if licenses permitted and Disney wanted to get involved?
Says every Star Trek fan ever.
However, Christopher is a novelist, and likely doesn’t know how to write TV/movie scripts, though I think that he can also write comics, so they could just give Christopher the rights to the movie novelisation/graphic novel where he could negotiate a larger share of profits with a third party publisher to make up his ‘dollar’?
I am familiar with script format, having written and submitted spec scripts to Star Trek back in the '90s, but I decided after my first few pitch sessions that I wasn't cut out for Hollywood. My first spec novel was about the filming of a movie on Mars, and I wrote the entire script for the movie first so that I could plot the novel around its shooting schedule. In retrospect, it was a pretty bad script, but not for formatting reasons.
Nobody would ever give me rights to a movie novelization. The rights to publish a novelization or tie-in novel lie with the publisher; I would simply be a contractor hired by the publisher to write novels for them to publish. It's also ridiculous to think that the pay rate for a novelization would be anywhere remotely close to "making up" the pay rate for a tentpole feature film script.
Saying things like that just proves you aren't a writer. I thought I had good ideas when I started out, but years of rejection letters taught me that telling good stories is a lot harder than I thought, and forced me to raise my game to the point where I could compete with other professional writers, always with the understanding that my work might not be good enough to make the cut. Real writers don't think "I know I could write a very good story," we think "How the hell am I going to make this story good enough?" And then we slog through and keep trying to fix the mess we've created until it finally feels presentable. I think that's more or less what Thomas Mann meant when he said "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
Okay, I'm confused... it is illegal to be (essentially forced) to pay a bribe in the US?
INAL, but I was under the impression that it was the person soliciting the bribe who commits the crime, not the victim?
The person soliciting the bribe in this case is the President of the United States (who won't be prosecuted while in office).
This is messy (a civil settlement is legal).
Which explains why he wouldn't be prosecuted for it (though it's still possible that he may allow any directly involved underlings to be if it suits his purpose).
That's what I thought. Which is why I was confused that people have been talking about CBS/Paramount being prosecuted for paying off Trump.
It's tough to prosecute a corporation.
I said earlier that there's the option of settling without an admission of guilt (In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled with Elon Musk and Tesla over securities fraud charges).
Is this case worth prosecuting? The most that will happen to Paramount is money changing hands between the company and the government.
Last edited:
Presumably one would prosecute the executives who performed the illegal action.
Well let me rephrase and say that I would be able to write a Star Trek movie soooo bad that it would actually be good!
I would be lead writer, my writing team would consist of, but not be limited to:
- @Christopher my scientific advisor, in charge of the ‘difficult bits’, technobabble, exposition and intimate scenes between characters.
- @Danja as my Seven of Nine specialist
- @Oddish and @Lynx as my Kes specialists (Kes may potentially return as a character similar to Phoenix from X Men)
- @Jayson1 as my head creative consultant, any ideas that him and I come up with, Christopher would have to explain with real world science.
Well let me rephrase and say that I would be able to write a Star Trek movie soooo bad that it would actually be good!
That's... not how it works. That's like saying you want to be a surgeon so bad that you know that desire alone would let you save lives without needing to muck about with medical school or internship first. No. It's a profession, not a hobby. Success is not a function of enjoyment or desire, it's a function of putting in the work and learning the craft. You can't just wish a story to be good, you have to learn how to make a story good, and that's a lot more complicated than it seems from the outside.
It took me seven years of writing seriously and attempting to sell my work before I finally broke in with my first sale, and it took me two more years to make my second. And even after you break in, the norm is to get more rejections than acceptances. Because this is a competitive business. It's not just about you and what you want. You have to be better than all the other trained, experienced people competing for the same job. It's not an entitlement.
And no, you can't do it by hiring other people to do it for you, or by plugging prompts into a large language model. Writing is about doing the work.
Signing off on a civil settlement is perfectly legal.
A corporation is legally considered a separate entity from its directors. In order to "pierce the corporate veil," you would need to prove that Paramount functions as an extension of its directors. You would need to prove that the business's assets and those of its directors are commingled.
Beware of “Piercing the Corporate Veil”
Business entities like LLCs are often promoted by attorneys for their ability to provide liability protection. These structures are designed to shield the owners of a business from personal liability for the activities of the business. This protection helps safeguard existing businesses and...
farmoffice.osu.edu
A good example of piercing the corporate veil is the Trump Foundation scandal (Trump used Foundation money to purchase a luxury trip to Paris for himself.)
Last edited:
Well let me rephrase and say that I would be able to write a Star Trek movie soooo bad that it would actually be good!
I would be lead writer, my writing team would consist of, but not be limited to:
I would also need an American citizen to marry me so that I can easily get a Visa to come and work in the USA.
- @Christopher my scientific advisor, in charge of the ‘difficult bits’, technobabble, exposition and intimate scenes between characters.
- @Danja as my Seven of Nine specialist
- @Oddish and @Lynx as my Kes specialists (Kes may potentially return as a character similar to Phoenix from X Men)
- @Jayson1 as my head creative consultant, any ideas that him and I come up with, Christopher would have to explain with real world science.
You are nowhere near as funny as you think you are. Please stop.
Well let me rephrase and say that I would be able to write a Star Trek movie soooo bad that it would actually be good!
I would be lead writer, my writing team would consist of, but not be limited to:
- @Danja as my Seven of Nine specialist
I thought that was YOUR job!
I was responding to the general statement "It's tough to prosecute a corporation," not addressing any single specific case. Corporations and/or their executives have been successfully prosecuted in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_convicted_of_felony_offenses_in_the_United_States