Mark Ruffalo: The deal with Warner Bros. of Paramount “will stifle creativity and weaken freedom of expression”

On September 30, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved the settlement between Paramount and 12 state attorneys general. That cleared the final legal hurdle to the roughly $111 billion merger. Hours later, Ruffalo spoke to X to condemn the outcome.

“This merger will stifle creativity, weaken free speech, and cost people their jobs. This is a bad deal for this country and should never have been approved,” Ruffalo wrote on X. “This is an incredibly disappointing outcome for the hundreds of thousands of us who stood up to block it, but it’s also not the end.”

“This popular movement will not disappear and neither will our determination,” the message continues. “It was never about a simple merger: it was about fighting corrupt billionaire oligarchs who trample on the interests of ordinary people to line their own pockets. We are still in this fight. Join us.”

Shortly after the decision, Paramount announced that Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz would join the company on October 5. He will serve as co-CEO of the combined company alongside David Ellison.

Ruffalo’s feud with the Ellisons

Ruffalo has been one of the most vocal opponents of the deal in Hollywood. His criticisms extend beyond Paramount CEO David Ellison to include Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The elder Ellison personally guaranteed $40.4 billion to support his son’s pursuit of Warner Bros.

The feud intensified on August 21, when Ruffalo shared a video on his Instagram Story of Safra Catz. Catz is executive vice president and former CEO of Oracle, and she also serves on the board of directors of Paramount. In the clip, taken from a 2024 Israeli-American Council summit, she describes the “truly deeply frightening technologies” that Oracle provided to the Israeli military after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Ruffalo warned that these technologies “will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and used on you one day.” He added: “Look at how (Catz) revels in what we have come to view as genocide, which was built on an Oracle-fueled system of apartheid oppression. »

Paramount said in a statement that it was “troubled when anti-Semitic tropes are invoked in the purported service of a business dispute.” The statement continued: “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ when applied to a commercial transaction, are not only false: they are a bridge too far, and they belittle the very real suffering that these words are intended to describe. The company urged those involved to “lower the temperature, not raise it” and said it does not tolerate bias of any kind.

Ruffalo retaliated against X on August 22. “The accusation that I am anti-Semitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” he wrote. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli Prime Minister, a military technology contract, or the leaders who provide it is not the same as criticizing the Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly presented as anti-Israeli. To be clear, my opinions come from my own political beliefs and should never be interpreted as hostility toward the Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect.”

He then returns to the merger. “This merger has real consequences for real people and for the entire country,” he wrote. “Scrutinizing the Ellisons, including Oracle’s data-driven businesses, surveillance technology and government contracts, as well as the serious threat to editorial freedom and the loss of livelihoods of thousands of families, is right and necessary. The $111 billion deal would give one family control of CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign capital whose influence over editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public.”

What’s in the regulations

Paramount reached an agreement on September 21 with the states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. The coalition filed a lawsuit in July to block the deal outright.

Under the consent decree, the combined company must release at least 30 theatrical films per year for the first two years, then 32 per year for the next three years. At least four films per year must be independent productions. Each counted film must remain in theaters for at least 45 days, and wide releases cannot reach subscription streaming for at least 90 days.

The company also must spend at least $300 million more per year on U.S. film production, compared to Paramount and Warner Bros. combined levels of 2025. It cannot sell or close either studio’s land in the Los Angeles area for at least five years.

Missing the annual film quota costs the company $30 million for each film it misses. That money is split between the entertainment industry’s health and retirement funds, the Motion Picture and Television Fund and a fund from the National Association of Attorneys General. A deficit would also force Paramount to sell its minority stake in Miramax, although the per-film penalty would likely carry more weight.

Within 180 days of the shutdown, the company must also establish a five-member editorial independence committee made up of established journalists. The board will set editorial principles for CBS News and CNN and resolve disputes over alleged violations. Colorado and Washington joined the broader settlement but refused to sign the drafting committee’s terms.

“Don’t give in”

Before the settlement was announced, Ruffalo publicly urged Bonta not to make a deal.

“Don’t you dare @AGRobBonta, don’t give in,” he wrote on

The 5,670 figure appears to refer to the open letter organized by the Block the Merger coalition, signed by thousands of film and television professionals opposed to the deal. After the terms of the settlement were announced, five coalition groups filed an amicus brief urging the judge to reject what they called a “toothless” settlement: Free Press, the Committee for the First Amendment, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Future Film Coalition and the International Documentary Association.

Martínez-Olguín still approved the settlement. She wrote that opponents’ hopes that the executive order would “go further — to achieve more — do not rise to the level of violations of the law.”