Paramount criticises pledge by entertainers to boycott Israeli film institutions
Actors who signed the pledge include Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, and Javier Bardem, among others.
Paramount launched an all-cash tender offer Monday to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for $30 per share, challenging a previously announced deal between WBD and Netflix.
The hostile offer sets up a furious battle between Paramount — whose owner, Larry Ellison, is an ally of Donald Trump — and streaming behemoth Netflix to buy one of Hollywood’s most storied studios.
Netflix shocked the industry last week by announcing it had sealed an agreement to buy the Warner Bros. studio, drawing bitter reactions from voices in Hollywood worried about the future of their industry.
Trump weighed in on Sunday, saying Netflix’s effort to acquire Warner Bros. “could be a problem” as it would be left with a huge market share of the film and TV industry.
“We’re really here to finish what we started,” David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, told CNBC as his company made a sixth offer for Warner Bros since the bidding war began.
Originally published in Dawn, December 9th, 2025