Mark Ruffalo says the Paramount–Warner Bros. merger a judge just approved ‘should never have been approved’
With a federal judge clearing the path for Hollywood’s biggest merger, Mark Ruffalo has sounded off — and his take won’t please the boardroom.
Here we go again with the Hollywood mega-mergers. Mark Ruffalo is not mincing his words after a US judge gave the green light for Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to tie the knot — genuinely, just what every screenwriter and below-the-line crew member wanted, right?
The Judge Weighs In
On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin signed off on a massive settlement, letting the $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. deal go through — despite a rather noisy opposition campaign. This thing’s been dragging on for ages, with twelve state attorneys general even dragging it into court over what they called competition worries. Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit from the Writers Guild of America got settled just last week, as Paramount and Warner seem very ready to wrap the whole thing up, possibly as soon as next week.
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery’s $110 billion merger got final court approval on Wednesday.
As part of the five-year settlement, Paramount is locked in to putting out at least thirty films in cinemas each year in the US — presumably to keep a pulse going in the actual theatrical business. Also, there’s now a five-person panel tasked specifically with keeping CNN and CBS editorially independent, as if that’ll solve all the worries about too much corporate meddling in the newsroom.
Ruffalo’s Reaction
Enter Mark Ruffalo, seemingly the first Marvel star off the blocks whenever a big studio move like this hits the trades. Taking to Threads, he called the outcome “incredibly disappointing” for the hundreds of thousands who tried to halt the merger. Ruffalo claims this isn’t some niche Hollywood tantrum either — he referenced support from 5,670 filmmakers and over 75,000 petition signatures, not to mention a “Block the Merger Coalition” that even filed an amicus brief (legalese for ‘please don’t do this’). Their read on the court settlement? “Toothless.”
In Ruffalo’s own words, posted straight to Threads just after the news broke:
“[The merger] will stifle creativity, weaken free speech and cost people their jobs. [It] is a bad deal for this country and should never have been approved.”
Ruffalo is adamant the grassroots pushback isn’t just going to fizzle out now the ink’s drying on the settlement. He’s already been urging California’s attorney general Rob Bonta not to settle, but Bonta did manage to extract a $1.5 billion increase in US film production from Paramount (over five years, which, frankly, in studio accounting terms, isn’t exactly a moon shot).
The Path Ahead
Meanwhile, part of the court settlement is that Paramount has to keep itself busy with those thirty US theatrical releases a year. The new media watchdog panel for CNN and CBS is meant to reassure everyone that newsrooms won’t just become marketing arms for the parent company (again, let’s wait and see).
Unless there’s a last-minute twist, Paramount is planning to formally finalise its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery as early as next week — with or without Ruffalo’s blessing.
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