Photograph: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Photos
Even when the Mayor of Los Angeles and the highest three film chains just like the Paramount-Warner Bros merger, Mark Ruffalo doesn’t, particularly after the previous studio referred to as his criticism “antisemitic.” Earlier this week, Ruffalo criticized David Ellison and Paramount for getting Warner Bros utilizing cash from Oracle Applied sciences. He reshared a video through which Oracle’s government vice chair Safra Catz stated Oracle had “actually profoundly scary know-how” obtainable to the Israeli army. “That is the corporate that Larry Ellison is utilizing to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition,” Ruffalo wrote on Instagram Tales on August 21. “These ‘actually profoundly scary applied sciences’ will most probably be merged into one of many largest media conglomerates on this planet and sooner or later used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was constructed on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
Paramount rapidly responded, telling Deadline, “We’re, as all the time, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a enterprise dispute,” stated a spokesperson. “Phrases like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ utilized to a company transaction, aren’t simply fallacious — they’re a bridge too far, they usually cheapen the very actual struggling these phrases are supposed to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in variety — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any variety, in opposition to anybody.”
Ruffalo didn’t let Paramount have the ultimate phrase. On the morning of August 22, he denied the accusations, reiterating his unique level. “The accusation that I’m antisemitic is appalling and basically dishonest,” he wrote on X. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a army know-how contract, or the executives who provide it isn’t the identical as criticizing Jewish individuals. This essential and mandatory dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.” He added, “The $111 billion deal would hand one household management over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed partially by international cash whose affect on editorial choices has by no means been totally defined to the general public.”
This Monday, Paramount and the state of California will meet to debate settlement choices relating to the state’s antitrust lawsuit in opposition to the studio.
The accusation that I’m antisemitic is appalling and basically dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a army know-how contract, or the executives who provide it isn’t the identical as criticizing Jewish individuals. This essential and mandatory dialogue…
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) August 22, 2026
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