The Committee for the First Amendment, an organization that is part of the Block the Merger coalition opposing the proposed merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, has released a new video with several Hollywood actors urging public opposition against the deal and calling on the state attorneys general who have sued to block the acquisition to not agree to a settlement.
Among the actors in the video are “The West Wing” star Bradley Whitford, “Hacks” and “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” star Hannah Einbinder, “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell and Committee for the First Amendment head Jane Fonda.
“No matter what Paramount promises,” Einbinder says in the video. “This mega merger – the largest financial transaction in Hollywood history – would cause massive layoffs and cuts to programming.”
In the video, the actors point to broken promises made in merger settlements such as the 2010 deal between the Department of Justice and Live Nation as part of the latter’s merger with Ticketmaster. As part of the settlement, Live Nation-Ticketmaster agreed not to retaliate against performance venues that did not want to work with the ticketing giant, a pledge that the company was accused of breaking in a 2018 New York Times report and later sued over.
“Corporations make all kinds of promises to get mergers approved, and then they break them,” Whitford adds.
The video comes in opposition to a wave of letters and public statements from industry executives and public officials who have called on California Attorney General Rob Bonta to reach a settlement with Paramount Skydance rather than take the lawsuit to trial, which is scheduled to take place in March 2027.
TKO CEO Ari Emanuel has called for a settlement while the top three theater chains in the country, AMC, Regal and Cinemark, have expressed their support for the merger.
Their support led to theater trade org Cinema United, which had previously opposed any acquisition of Warner Bros., to release a public letter calling for a settlement that would include pledges by Paramount to release 30 films per year with a 90-day theatrical window to streaming as well as continued access by exhibitors to classic films and protections against increasingly unfavorable terms on box office splits.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra have also called on Bonta to reach a settlement, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom also voicing his preference for a settlement. Bass’ opponent in this November’s mayoral election, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, has taken the opposite stance, urging Bonta to take his lawsuit to trial.
The common argument in favor of a settlement by all the above individuals and parties is that a trial would put the entertainment industry in a prolonged period of uncertainty that would prevent Paramount and Warner from moving forward on major productions at a time when industry workers in California and much of the rest of the country are struggling to find consistent employment.
But the Committee for the First Amendment and other members of the Block the Merger coalition such as the American Economic Liberties Project have warned that settlement terms are difficult to enforce, while a trial would give Bonta and his fellow AGs the ability to question Paramount Skydance officials under oath about the effects of the merger on consumer prices, the theatrical market and industry labor.
“Consent decrees have an additional and significant cost: they eliminate public trials and accountability. The public is largely in the dark about why a merger might be problematic, and what the details of a deal really are,” AELP’s Matt Stoller wrote last month.
“While litigation is not guaranteed to result in a decision blocking a proposed transaction, there is no better way to expose problems with a deal than putting executives on a stand, in public, and having well-prepared antitrust counsel cross-examine them under oath on their promises,” he added.
