As Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders prepare to vote on April 23, 2026, on Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion all-cash acquisition of the company, more than 4,000 Hollywood actors, directors, writers, and industry professionals have signed an open letter at blockthemerger.com declaring their unequivocal opposition to the merger. Prominent signatories include Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Kristen Stewart, Jane Fonda, Javier Bardem, Cynthia Nixon, Florence Pugh, Pedro Pascal, Rosario Dawson, and many others. The letter argues that the merger would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, threatening competition, creative diversity, jobs, and democratic discourse in entertainment.
While the signatories frame their resistance in terms of preserving a “healthy economy and healthy democracy,” it has become quite apparent that the campaign masks a deeper ideological driving force behind opposition to the merger: discomfort with the Jewish leadership of the deal and resentment toward merger partners perceived as pro-Israel.
Outgoing Paramount chair Shari Redstone, who is Jewish, cited the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, which killed about 1,200 Israelis and US citizens, including hundreds at the Nova music festival, as a pivotal factor in her decision to step back. In a New York Times interview, she stated she wanted to “support Israel, and address issues around antisemitism and racism.”
Incoming leader David Ellison, whose father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has longstanding Jewish and pro-Israel ties, has carried forward a similar stance. Skydance Media donated $1 million to Magen David Adom humanitarian efforts shortly after October 7 and declared that “Skydance stands with Israel.”
Paramount, under its transition, has also distributed documentaries addressing the October 7th massacre, including We Will Dance Again, The Children of October 7, and Red Alert, and publicly condemned Hollywood boycotts of Israeli creatives, stating that “silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”
A striking pattern emerges in the signatories’ prior activism. Many, including Ruffalo, Bardem, Nixon, Ilana Glazer, Miriam Margolyes, and at least 30 others, signed onto the Artists4Ceasefire letter launched in late October 2023 following the October 7th terror attacks. That initiative called for an immediate, permanent ceasefire and hostage release while emphasizing perceived Palestinian suffering. However, it provided limited context for Hamas’s initiating atrocities that resulted in justified retaliatory strikes by Israel. Additionally, Ruffalo, a lead voice against the merger who has testified at Senate hearings on the issue, and at least 16 other signatories, endorsed a 2025 open letter demanding the release of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader convicted in Israel for orchestrating terror attacks that killed civilians, including a Greek Orthodox monk and Israelis in multiple incidents.
The 16 other signatories are:
1. Cynthia Nixon
2. Dan Stevens
3. Don Cheadle
4. Elliot Page
5. Ilana Glazer
6. Javier Bardem
7. Miriam Margolyes
8. Rob Delaney
9. Sandra Huller
10. V (formerly Eve Ensler)
11. Yorgos Lanthimos
12. Annemarie Jacir
13. Asif Kapadia
14. Cherien Dabis
15. Indya Moore
16. Karen Malpede
Ruffalo has a documented history of strong criticism of Israel. In 2021, he apologized for social media posts accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, acknowledging the language as “inflammatory” and exploitable for antisemitism, yet he has continued similar rhetoric in later years, including questioning aspects of the international definition of antisemitism. This track record aligns with a broader segment of Hollywood activism that often singles out Israel while showing reluctance to equally condemn Hamas.
The celebrities’ economic arguments, that the merger harms competition, also face scrutiny. Post-merger, the combined entity would still trail Netflix by over 100 million streaming subscribers and hold roughly 20-24% market share in key segments, comparable to Disney and Universal. Proponents argue the deal provides the necessary scale for global competition and increased content output.
Additionally, the Democrat bias of the signatories cannot be ignored. Several Block the Merger signatories previously donated to disgraced former Congressman Eric Swalwell’s short-lived gubernatorial campaign in California, which collapsed amid sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women, and his resignation from Congress.
Hollywood contributed over $100,000 to Swalwell, with donors including Kathy Griffin ($10,000), and others linked to the entertainment world.
In the end, while the open letter presents a unified front on antitrust grounds, the heavy overlap with anti-Israel campaigns, the targeting of a deal involving Jewish leadership that has actively supported Israel post-October 7, and the selective outrage and excuse-making for Palestinian terrorism by critics of the merger suggest the opposition serves more as a proxy for ideological subversion than legitimate and fact-based criticism. As the shareholder vote looms, the merger fight underscores how Hollywood’s performative leftist activism increasingly intersects with — and arguably undermines — business pragmatism in media.
