Mark Ruffalo has vowed to continue opposing the Paramount-Warner Bros merger after a US judge approved a settlement clearing the final legal obstacle to the deal.
The actor condemned the decision on X, describing the proposed $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery by Paramount Skydance as a threat to creativity, free speech and jobs.
“This merger will stifle creativity, weaken free speech, and cost people their jobs—it is a bad deal for this country and should never have been approved,” Ruffalo wrote.
He added that the grassroots campaign against the transaction would continue, saying: “This was never about just one merger: this was about fighting back against corrupt oligarch billionaires trampling the interests of everyday people to line their own pockets.”
The Paramount-Warner Bros merger settlement
US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved Paramount’s settlement with 12 state attorneys general on September 30. The coalition, led by California attorney general Rob Bonta, had sued in July to block the deal.
Under the agreement, the combined company must release at least 30 films in cinemas each year for its first two years, rising to 32 annually for the following three years. At least four releases a year must be independent productions, while each qualifying film must remain in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days.
The company must also spend at least an additional $300 million a year on US film production above the combined 2025 levels of Paramount and Warner Bros. It will be barred from selling or closing either studio’s Los Angeles-area lot for at least five years.
Failure to meet the annual film quota will result in a $30 million payment for every missing film. The money will be divided between entertainment-industry health and retirement funds, the Motion Picture & Television Fund and a National Association of Attorneys General fund.
Within 180 days of the deal closing, the company must establish a five-member News Editorial Independence Board made up of established journalists. The board will set editorial principles for CBS News and CNN and rule on alleged breaches, although Colorado and Washington did not accept the editorial-board provisions.
Ruffalo’s criticism of the Ellisons
Ruffalo has become one of the most prominent Hollywood critics of the transaction, directing his opposition at Paramount chief executive David Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The elder Ellison personally guaranteed $40.4 billion to support his son’s bid for Warner Bros.
The dispute intensified in August when Ruffalo shared a video featuring Safra Catz, Oracle’s executive vice-chair and a Paramount board member. He accused the merger of potentially placing Oracle technology and the interests of the Ellison family at the centre of a major media conglomerate.
Paramount said it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute”. It said references to “genocide” and “apartheid” in relation to a corporate transaction were wrong and diminished the suffering those terms were intended to describe.
Ruffalo rejected the accusation of antisemitism, saying that criticism of Israel’s prime minister, a military technology contract or executives involved in supplying it was not criticism of Jewish people. He said his concerns about the merger related to editorial freedom, jobs and the influence of the Ellisons.
Before the settlement was announced, Ruffalo also urged Mr Bonta not to compromise. “Don’t you dare @AGRobBonta, do not cave,” he wrote, arguing that thousands of filmmakers and tens of thousands of other supporters had opposed the deal.
Five groups from the campaign later asked the judge to reject the settlement, describing it as “toothless”. Judge Martínez-Olguín approved it nonetheless, writing that objectors’ hopes for the agreement “to reach farther—to achieve more—do not rise to the level of legal violations”.
Paramount has since announced that Mattel chief executive Ynon Kreiz will join the company on October 5 as co-chief executive alongside David Ellison.
