Academy Award–nominated actor Mark Ruffalo is taking aim at the proposed Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery merger in a New York Times op-ed, co-written with American Economic Liberties Project research director Matt Stoller, arguing that the deal can be stopped if artists overcome fear of professional consequences and publicly speak out against it.
“There are many reasons to block this deal, but we now believe the most fundamental one is what we encountered when asking artists to use their voices: fear,” the two wrote in the opinion piece published Thursday. “A deep, ugly and pervasive fear of speaking out.”
A Paramount spokesperson did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
The two wrote that, in their quest to recruit thousands of signatories to sign their “block the merger” open letter opposing the deal, they found that people were afraid of professional retribution. They cited multiple examples, including TheWrap’s report on Paramount temporarily pulling advertisements from the Ankler over editorial director and columnist Rich Rushfield holding “block the merger” buttons and a Semafor report that claimed CNN recently passed on hosting Ruffalo as a guest due to wariness about covering the planned acquisition of its parent company.
“This merger will cause many harms in Hollywood, but one is already in effect: People are afraid to say what they think about their own industry,” the two wrote.
What could counter such fear, they wrote, was collective action.
“When over 4,000 artists are willing to sign a letter encouraging state attorneys general to block the merger — and more are signing every day — that matters,” Ruffalo and Stoller wrote. “When elected leaders, from the California attorney general Rob Bonta to Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York start speaking out, holding hearings and starting investigations, that matters, too.”
They pointed to recent adverse legal orders against media and tech companies, such as a federal judge’s injunction blocking Nexstar’s merger with Tegna and a jury’s ruling against Meta and Google in a landmark social media trial regarding youth addiction.
“The oligarchs are still in charge. But they are starting to lose their grip on power,” they wrote. “We’ve seen what happens when monopoly-leaning companies benefit from a fear that silences dissent. But our growing coalition is demonstrating that when we don’t get stuck on the sidelines, don’t bow down to inevitability and join together to fight, we can win.”
