The Jane Fonda-led Committee for the First Amendment released a video Friday satirically imagining what Hollywood’s future might look like if the Ellison-run Paramount is allowed to buy Warner Bros.
The video, titled “Auditions In a World Where Corporations Let the President Dictate Their Content Decisions,” features Fonda, Yvette Nicole Brown, Ed Begley Jr., Kirsten Vangsness, Anthony Roy Davis, Jodie Sweetin and others. In it, the stars playfully poke fun at the reports that Paramount greenlit “Rush Hour 4” at President Trump’s personal request last year, by imagining a future where the only shows and movies being made exist within the “Rush Hour” universe.
“How’s work been?” an unseen casting director asks at one point in the video. “It’s been slow. You know, there’s only the ‘Rush Hour’ movies,” Begley Jr. responds. “It’s just that one flavor.” Later, when she is also asked how work has been as of late, Fonda replies, “Is that a serious question? Should I tell the truth? I can’t get any of the movies that I want made. I’m hoping that ‘Rush Hour,’ it will please the right people and maybe I’ll get a job.”
“Media companies that make content decisions as political favors to the president (repayable in approved merger deals!) should be embarrassed about their surrender to a corrupt administration set on destroying free expression,” the Instagram video’s caption reads. You can watch the full skit yourself below.
The video was posted by the Committee for the First Amendment, an organization originally co-founded by Fonda’s father Henry during the era of McCarthyism in the 1940s. Its original members included Golden Age Hollywood icons like Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland.
Fonda relaunched the committee in October 2025 with over 550 other Hollywood stars, including Barbra Streisand, Ben Stiller, Billy Crystal, Ethan Hawke, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, Nicolas Cage, Olivia Wilde, Sam Waterston, Susan Sarandon, Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg and Winona Ryder.
“It is our turn to stand together in defense of our constitutional rights. The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia and the entertainment industry,” the committee’s first post-relaunch statement read last year. “We refuse to stand by and let that happen.”
The committee’s scathing parody comes just one day after Netflix officially bowed out of the race to acquire Warner Bros., seemingly paving the way for Paramount to take over the legendary studio.
That development has been met with widespread dismay and anger from those within the entertainment industry. Many have cited the close friendship between Paramount CEO David Ellison, his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and President Trump as a reason for concern about the Warner Bros. movies and shows that may be greenlit under Paramount’s control.
