CHICAGO (AP) —

A federal judge has approved Paramount’s settlement with 12 states regarding the company’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, paving the way for the two to finalize their $81 billion mega merger.

In a ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín stated that the proposed consent decree offers a “fair, reasonable, and good faith approach to address the competitive harms” that the states have alleged. Paramount had previously viewed the antitrust challenge as the final barrier to closing the merger and indicated plans to wrap up the deal as early as October.

Following Martínez-Olguín’s ruling later that afternoon, it was announced that Ynon Kreiz, the current CEO of toy giant Mattel, would join Paramount on October 5 as co-CEO with David Ellison for the newly combined company.

The merging of Paramount and Warner Bros. will unite two of Hollywood’s remaining legacy studios. HBO Max, which boasts a collection of titles like “Harry Potter” alongside networks such as CNN, will now coexist with CBS, the “Top Gun” franchise, and the Paramount+ streaming service.

For context, top prosecutors from 12 states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, initially filed a lawsuit in July to prevent the merger. They contended that combining Paramount and Warner would “extinguish competition” and limit choices for consumers, especially those frequenting movie theaters and cable services.

Just last week, an agreement was reached to settle these claims, with new commitments from Paramount that include increasing film production in the U.S. over the next five years, investing millions into a fund to aid workers affected by the merger, and implementing new oversight for CNN and CBS.

When announcing the settlement on September 21, Bonta emphasized that it aimed to “protect people’s careers, the lives they’ve built here in California, the livelihoods their families rely on,” while also clarifying that it wasn’t an endorsement of the merger itself.

However, many critics of the merger quickly expressed dissatisfaction with the settlement, calling it a concession to corporate interests and claiming the terms were insufficiently robust. The judge was cautious in her approval, indicating during a hearing that she had lingering questions and that the court would not serve merely as a “rubber stamp” for such agreements.

Martínez-Olguín allowed opponents of the settlement, including members of the Block The Merger coalition and the League of United Latin American Citizens, to voice their concerns through amicus briefs. She also required Paramount and the settling states to address a letter from Democratic Senator Cory Booker, advocating for a more thorough examination of the arrangement.

However, in her order, she concluded that the desire for more stringent settlement terms “do not rise to the level of legal violations upon which the Court can reject the parties’ negotiated resolution.”

On Wednesday, the Block the Merger coalition reiterated that they viewed the settlement as a “toothless” agreement.

They claimed, “Allowing the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger to progress without meaningful structural remedies will lead to job losses, stifle creativity, undermine independent journalism, and threaten our First Amendment rights.” But they also noted a silver lining: “if there’s any clear advantage of this corporate takeover being approved, it’s that people are now alert and engaged – and their discontent won’t just vanish.”

Additionally, the Writers Guild of America, which filed its own lawsuit shortly after the states’ action in July, reached a settlement with Paramount last week, concluding that continuing a separate legal battle wasn’t feasible.