Mark Ruffalo says Paramount’s $111 billion Warner Bros. deal ‘Will stifle creativity, weaken free speech, and cost people their jobs’

Mark Ruffalo isn’t giving up his fight against Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, even with the deal days from closing.

On Sept. 30, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved Paramount’s settlement with 12 state attorneys general. That cleared the last legal obstacle to the roughly $111 billion merger. Hours later, Ruffalo took to X to condemn the outcome.

“This 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 wrote on X. “This is an incredibly disappointing outcome for the hundreds of thousands of us who stood up to block it, but it’s also not the end.”

“This grassroots movement isn’t going to fade away and neither is our resolve,” the post continued. “This was never about just one merger: this was about fighting back against corrupt oligarch billionaires trampling the interests of everyday people to line their own pockets. We’re still in that fight. Join us.”

Shortly after the ruling, Paramount announced that Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz will join the company Oct. 5. He will serve as co-CEO of the combined company alongside David Ellison.

Ruffalo’s feud with the Ellisons

Ruffalo has been one of Hollywood’s most vocal opponents of the deal. His criticism has gone beyond Paramount CEO David Ellison to include Ellison’s father, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison. The elder Ellison personally guaranteed $40.4 billion to back his son’s pursuit of Warner Bros.

The feud escalated on Aug. 21, when Ruffalo shared a video on his Instagram story of Safra Catz. Catz is Oracle’s........

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