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Hollywood Stars Sign Open Letter Protesting Paramount-Warner Bros Merger (nbcnews.com) 77

Posted by BeauHD from the too-big-to-greenlight dept.
More than 1,000 Hollywood figures, including major actors, writers, and directors, signed an open letter opposing Paramount Skydance's proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing it would hurt an industry "already under severe strain." The deal is still under regulatory scrutiny in both the U.S. and U.K., while Paramount says the merger would strengthen competition and expand opportunities for creators. NBC News reports: "This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries -- and the audiences we serve -- can least afford it," the signatories wrote in the letter, published early Monday on a website called Block the Merger. "The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world. Alarmingly, this merger would reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four," the signatories added.

[T]he open letter illustrates the deep resistance to the deal among many members of Hollywood's creative community. The list of signatories includes A-list stars (Glenn Close, Ben Stiller), celebrated filmmakers (Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villeneuve) and acclaimed writers ("The Sopranos" creator David Chase). "Media consolidation has accelerated the disappearance of the mid-budget film, the erosion of independent distribution, the collapse of the international sales market, the elimination of meaningful profit participation, and the weakening of screen credit integrity," the signatories wrote. "Together, these factors threaten the sustainability of the entire creative community," they added.

[...] Monday's open letter was spearheaded by a group of advocacy organizations -- including the Committee for the First Amendment, a free speech group led by Fonda, who warned that the merger "would be one of the most destructive threats to free speech and creative expression in our history." In the letter, first reported by The New York Times, the signatories expressed support for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has said the merger is "not a done deal." "These two Hollywood titans have not cleared regulatory scrutiny -- the California Department of Justice has an open investigation, and we intend to be vigorous in our review," Bonta said in a Feb. 26 post on X. Paramount Skydance said that they "hear and understand the concerns" and are committed to "protecting and expanding creativity." The studio also reiterated its commitment to releasing a minimum of 30 "high-quality feature films annually with full theatrical releases" and "preserving iconic brands with independent creative leadership" to make sure "creators have more avenues for their work, not fewer."

Hollywood Stars Sign Open Letter Protesting Paramount-Warner Bros Merger More | Reply

Hollywood Stars Sign Open Letter Protesting Paramount-Warner Bros Merger

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  • I honestly might be missing the point (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Presence Eternal ( 56763 ) on Monday April 13, 2026 @06:20PM (#66092478)

    To misquote YouTube animator Crowne Prince: If you don't like who owns your favorite shit, make your own damn shit.

    The current barrier to entry for making money online by telling stories is you having the resources to read this text.

    Perhaps I'm missing something.

    • Nope, you got it.

      If people don't want Corporatist bullshit then they should not pay for corporatist bullshit.

      If people want to make a movie using their own story and vision then they can...

      Start with a .txt file.

      Make a storyboard.

      Shoot it using the camera they have.

      Draw and render whatever they can't shoot IRL in free open source software on the computer the have (look at what they made in 1995, garbage computers running Linux nowadays can outperform what they had easily).

      Composite / edit / render it in fre

      • Re:I honestly might be missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Zero__Kelvin ( 151819 ) on Monday April 13, 2026 @07:09PM (#66092518) Homepage
        That's the great thing about technology. Everybody is an expert now. Don't like your OS? Just write your own! Not satisfied with your car? Just design your own! Your computer isn't fancy enough? You live in a free country! Just whip one up yourself! I'm sure the quality won't suffer a bit ... After all, how hard can it be to do what Glenn Close does? It's just her spouting a bunch of words!

        • "Recruit your friends, grab your 15 year old camcorder, edit in Sony/Magix Vegas, do the CGI stuff in whatever you can find"!
          It can't look worse than https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

          Oh, yeah... just sit down and write your own editing suite, complete with a CGI plug-in or something. You have a full-time job? Just work on it in your free-time (because we have tons).

          Sure, with just a camcorder (a Sony HDR-SR11) and an audio recorder (Zoom H2, plugged into the mixing board with my own set of EQs and volume)

          • "Recruit your friends, grab your 15 year old camcorder, edit in Sony/Magix Vegas, do the CGI stuff in whatever you can find"!

            A home user these days has a LOT of resources/tools that will allow some great content to be made.

            There are tools that only a few years ago were ONLY in the reaches of the $$$ corporations.

            You can buy quality cameras for $2K or so range...you have tools like Davinci Resolve that actually has a FREE version that will do 99% of what a young filmmaker would need to do with reference

          • All the software do make a movie for free already exists, the industry standards used by the major studios are literally FOSS forks.
            You don't need to make anything but raw content to put into the software, and 10 year old surplus computers are capable of running it all.

            Every person that wants to make a movie has an HD camera in their pocket already.

            You're overcomplicating the solution to the problem.

        • Or they can put on a play.

          If someone's desire is out of their reach when it comes to making art then they need to either recruit people to help them or work within their means.

          As OP said, the story can be a .txt file, if the creator does not have the capacity to make it into a movie they can leave that to someone who can and write the next .txt file.

          • Yes. The solution to replacing "The Godfather", "A Clockwork Orange" and other movies of that caliber is to create a .txt file and have a play at your local coffee shop. Herp Derp.

            • Really?

              That's the sum total of your take on it? A complaint about 'replacing' classics? No film maker is trying to 'replace' the classics, they are trying to add to the ongoing collection or artistic endeavors that humanity is creating.

              The Godfather and A Clockwork Orange literally started as a pile of text on paper.

              It all starts as text. Everything. If it's considered good enough by enough people then it will get made into a movie.
              Sure, it might be a low budget movie the first time, but if that is receive

              • No. My take on it was already posted. That was a reply to your stupidity. Of you go now ...

                • Were those the most recent good movies that came to your mind?

                  • Perhaps you weren't aware that great movies have given way to the Netflix/ Hulu / HBO Series? I could have chosen Ozark, Breaking Bad, Mayor of Kingstown, Sons of Anarchy, DTF St. Louis, Tulsa King, ... there are far too many to list. What's your point?

                    • Oh, just curious about the thought process. It sounds like you want narratives that you can immerse yourself in as deeply as possible.

                    • Fair enough, and yes. I agree that any idiot can make a video / movie / series that relies heavily on the suspension of disbelief and has no real plot and/or doesn't require intelligence to enjoy (or often counts on the absence of it.) In order to create truly great art, however, requires talent and expertise. Any idiot can grab some paint and a paintbrush, but that doesn't mean anyone with access to tools is a professional who can create a product worth paying good money for, and these days far too many pe
    • Nobody's going to give you the money to compete with Hollywood. At best you might be able to crank out a b movie or two that you can dump on Netflix but even that is dodgy because the people in charge of everything all go to the same golf clubs and they all belong on each other's board of directors so if you're actually going to try to break into that by competing they're just not going to let you do it.

      If you happen to have enough money to start your own thing then sooner or later you will trip up and

      • Your taste sucks.

        • I'm sorry, I wrote that in haste. I meant to say that it appears you think the only productions worth seeing are highly polished and expensive affairs and that this seems strange to me.

          • I'm sorry, I wrote that in haste. I meant to say that it appears you think the only productions worth seeing are highly polished and expensive affairs and that this seems strange to me.

            YouTube certainly proves there is a market for content produced on a shoestring budget, but that's not going to work for every possible story someone could want to tell. For example, I couldn't get through Star Wreck because the whole thing was just so amateurish.

    • It's not about who owns stuff. Its about where stuff is made.

      Los Angeles folks are complaining about production being moved from Los Angeles to Toronto. That's it.

    • The current barrier to entry for making money online by telling stories is you having the resources to read this text.

      I think that's missing some important aspects. We have reached total absurdity in how "content creators" compete for our attention. That means a few thing if you want to make money online by telling stories, at least enough for a decent living.

      First, you cannot do that without dedicating significant time to it, and I mean more than a healthy amount of time to dedicate to earning an income. It's all or nothing with your time.

      Second, you have to be some kind of psychopath, convinced that you are justified in

    • That analogy holds when you are an animator and the "own damn shit" you make can be done with a reasonable time and cost. It doesn't apply when you need a $100m budget.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Audiences expect a certain level of quality, which is why most of the Star Trek fan stuff never gains any significant viewership. The only one that ever got much traction was funded to the tune of millions of USD to build proper sets, hire professional camera and sound people, that sort of thing.

      • Exactly!
        Even with a decent FOSS editing suite (with built-in CGI capability), a nice new $2,500 camera (because everyone has extra $$$ just laying around), good quality LAV mics, everyone's parents making lunch and helping with sets and stuff, and a decent script, it still ends up looking like the Sonic fanfilm.

        If you're trying for a Kung Fury-level film, you won't just be working on it on the weekends or for an hour an evening... the project becomes your life.

  • Who cares what the self-important talent thinks?
    If they want to do something about it, take their vast wealth and instead of buying a 3rd home in St Tropez, set up a production co-op.
    It's been done before.

    "United Artists is an American film production and distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded on February 5, 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks as a venture premised on allowing actors to control their own fin

    • Many celebrities do own production companies.

      • United Artists is an American film production and distribution company

        Today, the Big Five majors – Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Sony Pictures – routinely distribute hundreds of films every year into all significant international markets (that is, where discretionary income is high enough for consumers to afford to watch films). The majors enjoy "significant internal economies of scale" from their "extensive and efficient [distribution] infrastructure,"[8] while it is "nearly impossible" for a film to reach a broad international theatrical audience without being first picked up by one of the majors for distribution.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Distribution isn't cheap or easy for even the best indie films. A notable exception was that Youtube guy that got his film in theaters [wikipedia.org] and made a fair ton of money on his personally financed film. Maybe in the future it will get easier for some folks?

    • Between 100 million and a billion dollars. It's a really huge gap that people have a hard time grasping because human beings are bad at grasping numbers that large.

      The absolute top Stars might have net worth in the hundred million range or so but besides one or two super duper Stars none of them approach billionaire status. They simply do not have the money to start their own production studios that are capable of competing with Disney and Warner Bros.

      And nobody is going to give them the money to d

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        The primary reason movies are so expensive these days is that they'll pay tens of millions of dollars for a familiar face on the poster.

        If those familiar faces were willing to work for a regular wage rather than a million dollars a day, they could easily compete with Hollywood.

      • The absolute top Stars might have net worth in the hundred million range or so but besides one or two super duper Stars none of them approach billionaire status. They simply do not have the money to start their own production studios that are capable of competing with Disney and Warner Bros.

        If ten people with 100M each need access to 1B to create something, they can associate. They want the same thing and together, they have the money for it.

      • There's an easy solution to that, and it's the same one that created the studios in the first place. They get together, pool some money, and start a new production company.

      • I get that literally every issue for you is a launching point for an anticapitalist screed but this is just silly.

        First, production tools have gotten ridiculously cheap.
        Distribution costs are now - depending on how you choose to distribute - basically ZERO. You claim 'capitalism has broken' mantra with your usual sky-is-falling hyperbole when in fact, never in the history of media has Hollywood had *less* of a lock on distribution than they do at this moment.
        If Tom Cruise wants to make a film about X, the

    • If they want to do something about it, take their vast wealth and instead of buying a 3rd home in St Tropez, set up a production co-op.

      99% of self important talent is not wealthy. You're talking about a tiny subset of people who made it big (survivor bias). Those people who did make it big already do partially own production companies, or partially invest in things. E.g. John Travolta is the singular reason we got that horrible movie Battlefield Earth: No one offered to fund it so he put up money himself through his own production company.

      He's the only one in that movie who would have had the funds and ability to do that. There's 1000s of

      • Nonsense. It's clearer than ever that you don't need a $500m budget to make even a blockbuster film anymore (esp if you don't have to pay Adam Sandler $48m to be in it - is he really worth that? cmon...).

        These people are signing their names to this in the belief that their 'star power' carries some credibility. I don't know with whom but my point is that they can make productions themselves.

        Joss Whedon made Dr Horrible's Singalong in 2007-8 for $450k and it made $3m as of 2012 - in fact it made him person

    • Counterpoint: the "owned by" is no longer followed by "actors". UA sold itself to Transamaerica on the basis if its financial success, then sold to MGM on the basis of its financial failures.

      The thing you smugly insist that other people put in the labor to accomplish does not actually persist when people do it.

  • The only group of people I have less empathy for than politicians are Hollywood movie stars (followed closely by social media influencers).

  • My first thought was Gal Gadot's "We're all in this together." video where a bunch of Hollywood types covered John Lennon's "Imagine" during COVID.

    Gal Gadot hasn't signed.

    And I notice Ellen Degeneres (who stood out for her creepy, fake smile in the video and reputation for being a total bitch off-camera) isn't on the list of 1476 names.

    Of those who were in the video, Pedro Pascal, Dawn Porter, and Mark Ruffalo are the only ones on the list.

    Oprah "Watch It Burn" Winfrey hasn't signed, either.

    More celebs were

  • They should not sign open letters but demand a merger control proceeding. Antitrust can stop them For instance it is under review in the UK by Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Union merger control is still pending.

  • 8 episodes a year and millions in salary a year give me a fucking break.

  • Media concentration ALWAYS sucks (Score:3)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @08:23AM (#66093068)

    All you have to do is look what happens when an entertainment giant like Disney gets hold of a franchise. They run it into the ground. Some franchises ruined by corporate greed (not all Disney): Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Mulan, Pirates of the Caribbean, the MCU...probably a lot more if I googled around a bit.

    Mega-corporations want maximum profits, and they don't care how much damage they do getting them. And in current business terms, "maximum profits" means wring the asset dry, discard it and move on to the next acquisition. The idea of steady, long-term profitability seems to have died.

    Less competition means less innovation, and when one CEO only has to call three other CEOs to figure out how they're going to divide up the pie, there's virtually none.

    • Regardless of suckitude, this is normal when industries are being strained. Forget what they do, when an industry is shrinking or rapidly changing, major players begin to falter and have to merge if anyone is going to stay afloat. If it's a choice between only four studios or the entire industry collapsing, I'll take the four. Eventually, things will change again and either the industry will boom and the complaints will go away, or it will dissolve entirely and become something else.

      Will there be less

    • All you have to do is look what happens when an entertainment giant like Disney gets hold of a franchise. They run it into the ground. Some franchises ruined by corporate greed (not all Disney): Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Mulan, Pirates of the Caribbean, the MCU...probably a lot more if I googled around a bit.
      To be fair, Pirates was based on a fucking Disney ride, so there wasn't much "there" to be ruined. Wouldn't call Mulan a franchise either(of course live action remakes are just lazy). Now S
  • To get the public to support X, the story goes "hated people hate x!" I've seen it MUCH more recently lately. The inverse also works. Give up your teamism.

  • I'm in favor of anything that hollywood stars oppose.

  • I think these actors have it backwards. When an entire industry is under strain, then like it or not, mergers are both normal and necessary. When they say things like, "Media consolidation has accelerated the disappearance of the mid-budget film, the erosion of independent distribution, the collapse of the international sales market, the elimination of meaningful profit participation, and the weakening of screen credit integrity," they're missing the actual problem. All of those things are a sign that th

  • Maybe a strike of the top 1000 Hollywood stars would have more effect than a letter, or maybe it would just hasten their replacement by AI avatars.

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