Mark Ruffalo eviscerated the Ellison family and their Paramount-Warner Bros. merger on Friday over business ties he claimed contributed to Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
A Paramount spokesperson responded to the actor’s remarks in an exclusive statement to TheWrap, saying that his scorched-earth Instagram post was “antisemitic” and “a bridge too far.”
“We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe,” the statement read. “This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
The heated exchange of words began early Friday after Ruffalo shared on Instagram a video of Safra Catz, executive vice chair of Larry Ellison’s Oracle, flexing that the company’s “profoundly scary technologies” advanced the Israeli agenda against Palestinians following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks nearly three years ago.
“This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros. acquisition,” the actor wrote. “These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
Paramount’s response called for a “moment to lower the temperature, not raise it.”
“We’d rather build than further engage in such rhetoric. This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction,” the spokesperson said. “On the other hand, our commitment to great content is matched by our commitment to acceptance — to every story, every storyteller, and no blacklists, no exceptions, for anyone. We understand people feel strongly about this merger and are hopeful and expect that it will be judged based on the legal merits, not underlying bias. We’re asking for the same good faith we’re extending: less rhetoric, more understanding. Paramount’s future is being written for everyone who wants to make and watch great stories.”
Ruffalo has long been a vocal advocate to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger, and he continued his crusade against the deal in the same Instagram post Friday, emphasizing that it would erase Hollywood jobs. TheWrap exclusively reported earlier this week that the merger could result in the loss of nearly 4,500 film and TV jobs in Los Angeles County over the next three years when the two companies combine their operations. Ruffalo personally shared our reporting Thursday on X.
“Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros,’” Ruffalo wrote Friday. “Larry is a classic Oligarch. They are crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance. We have a chance to stop this. There are 12 state Attorneys General suing to block this merger. It will be catastrophic for our film industry.”
He concluded: “There will be a loss of 4,500 direct film making jobs and the loss of another 10k ancillary jobs. Merger like this are almost always bad for workers, consumers and the industry they tend to dominate. It’s a classic antitrust case. It will hike up the cost of cable and flatten out competition. This means less choice for our audiences. It also concentrates an enormous amount of creative control to companies that say and do things like this strange woman from Oracle. Really profoundly scary people.”
As for that “strange woman” in question, the video of Catz came from the 10th annual Israeli-American Council (IAC) National Summit earlier this year and her comments on aiding Israel in Gaza have resurfaced in recent days.
“There’s a few things that we did that I really can’t talk about to advance the agenda for the Israeli military,” Catz said at the time. “But we have some really profoundly scary technology at Oracle and we wanted to make sure that it was available for the effort. Let’s just say that, OK?”
