The open letter opposing Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is the biggest collective act of industry defiance in years. And it might not matter at all.
On Monday morning, a letter appeared on a website called BlockTheMerger.com. It was signed by over 1,000 of Hollywood’s most recognizable names — actors, directors, writers, producers — and it said, in very clear language, that the proposed $111 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery should not happen.
The signatories include Denis Villeneuve, Joaquin Phoenix, Kristen Stewart, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Cranston, Glenn Close, David Chase, David Fincher, Ben Stiller, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Don Cheadle, Jane Fonda, Lily Gladstone, Ted Danson, and Yorgos Lanthimos, among many others. The letter argued that the merger would shrink competition “at a moment when our industries — and the audiences we serve — can least afford it.”
The core argument is straightforward and hard to argue with on its face: the letter warns that the deal would “reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four,” and that media consolidation has accelerated the disappearance of the mid-budget film, the erosion of independent distribution, the collapse of the international sales market, and the weakening of screen credit integrity.
This is not abstract anxiety. It’s a description of what already happened when Disney absorbed Fox. Thousands of jobs vanished. Entire development slates were incinerated. Studios that once competed for talent suddenly didn’t have to, because they were the same studio. The letter’s signatories are essentially saying: we watched this movie before, and we know how it ends.
Damon Lindelof, the creator of “Watchmen” and co-creator of “Lost,” who has an overall deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, detailed his decision to sign on Instagram, writing that “Hollywood mergers mean fewer movies and fewer TV shows and that means fewer jobs.” He called Hollywood a “blue-collar town” of grips, gaffers, drivers, and caterers, and said simply: “They’re all about to get f—ed.”
Paramount responded the same day. The company argued that the transaction would ensure “more avenues for their work, not fewer,” promising to increase output to “a minimum of 30 high-quality feature films annually with full theatrical releases.”
Thirty films a year. It sounds impressive until you remember that Paramount and Warner Bros. already release roughly that many combined — which means the promise is essentially to not immediately cut output. It says nothing about what happens in year two, or year three, when the debt from a $111 billion acquisition starts demanding its pound of flesh.
The California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said the merger is “not a done deal” and that the state is probing the transaction. The Justice Department’s antitrust division is also reviewing it. But regulatory challenges to media mergers have a poor track record in recent decades. The AT&T-Time Warner deal went through. The Disney-Fox deal went through. The industry consolidated, and the promised efficiencies materialized primarily as layoffs.
What makes this letter notable isn’t that it will necessarily stop the merger — it likely won’t — but that it exists at all. These are people who work for, and depend on, the very companies they’re criticizing. Signing your name to a letter opposing the business strategy of your current or future employer is not a zero-risk proposition in an industry built on relationships and power dynamics. The fact that over 1,000 people did it anyway says something about the depth of the fear and frustration in the creative community.
Whether the regulators listen is another question entirely.
