1204 ET - Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav says he's confident the company's deal with Paramount will close. The comments come as Paramount's $81 billion deal to buy Warner faces legal challenges by 12 states and the Writers Guild, which seek to block the deal on antitrust grounds. A trial date has been set for March 2027, and under the terms of the deal, Warner can receive a breakup fee of $7 billion if it hasn't closed by June 4, 2027. Zaslav doesn't think it will come to this, though: "We have every expectation that the transaction will close, and that the company will be performing even better than the plan that we presented to Paramount when we did our deal," he says on a call with analysts.