{"id":834421,"date":"2026-09-02T18:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/834421\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:38:09","slug":"hes-a-good-man-george-clooney-defends-mark-ruffalo-in-paramount-warner-bros-merger-row-george-clooney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/834421\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He\u2019s a good man\u2019: George Clooney defends Mark Ruffalo in Paramount-Warner Bros merger row | George Clooney"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Clooney has defended Mark Ruffalo\u2019s right to criticise the proposed $111bn Paramount takeover of Warner Bros Discovery<\/a>, saying he is concerned about the consequences of further consolidation in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Venice ahead of receiving the festival\u2019s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, Clooney said he supported Ruffalo\u2019s \u201cability to speak freely\u201d about the proposed merger, while expressing his own doubts about the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry when a big company swallows up another company,\u201d Clooney said. \u201cI always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it means a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruffalo has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents<\/a> of the Paramount-Warner Bros deal. In a social media post last month, the Marvel star attacked the proposed merger over its potential consequences for Hollywood, while also turning his criticism on the family behind Paramount. David Ellison, the company\u2019s chief executive, is the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Ruffalo accused the Ellison family of being complicit the \u201cgenocide\u201d of Palestinians, arguing that it was \u201cbuilt on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ruffalo highlighted Oracle\u2019s ties to the Israeli military, sharing a video of the company\u2019s executive vice-chair and Paramount board member Safra Catz discussing technologies Oracle had used after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel. His comments prompted a backlash from Paramount, which accused him of invoking antisemitic tropes.<\/p>\n

Ruffalo rejected the accusation and has continued to defend his criticism of the deal and of Oracle\u2019s business ties to Israel. More than 170 Jewish artists, academics and public figures subsequently signed an open letter<\/a> defending the actor and warning against attempts to silence criticism of Israel or the proposed merger.<\/p>\n

Mark Ruffalo has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of the deal. Photograph: Hoda Davaine\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI support Mark Ruffalo\u2019s ability to speak freely,\u201d Clooney said. \u201cI think that that\u2019s ridiculous. We\u2019re not going to ban speech. I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it. That\u2019s important, right? In fact, it\u2019s part of how a democracy works.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are going to be people tonight in the room that are going to disagree with most everything I say or stand for. Fair enough. That\u2019s how it\u2019s supposed to be. We\u2019re supposed to argue these things out and come to a conclusion based on the information that we take in \u2026 I will always support Mark Ruffalo\u2019s ability to speak freely. I like him. He\u2019s a good man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney said he did not believe the Paramount-Warner deal necessarily made financial sense. \u201cI don\u2019t know how this goes through. There are so many issues involved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I\u2019m deadClooney on AI<\/p>\n

Clooney also warned that artificial intelligence will become \u201ca very big part of this industry\u201d but will \u201churt us in a lot of ways\u201d. He joked: \u201cI would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I\u2019m dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prominent Trump critic said the US midterm elections in November \u201cshould be a check and balance\u201d, adding that in 2028 \u201cwith any luck, we\u2019ll have some restoration into normalcy\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also raised concerns about the concentration of media ownership among the world\u2019s wealthiest people. Asked about the state of journalism, he pointed to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, and Elon Musk, owner of X.<\/p>\n

Clooney will accept the lifetime achievement award on Wednesday evening. It is a striking case of life imitating art: last year, he attended the festival for Noah Baumbach\u2019s Jay Kelly<\/a>, in which he played an ageing Hollywood star travelling to Italy to receive a lifetime achievement honour. Clooney will now undergo the same ritual in real life, with Laura Dern \u2013 his Jay Kelly co-star \u2013 presenting the award.<\/p>\n

The honour caps a relationship with Venice stretching back almost three decades. Clooney first appeared at the festival with Out of Sight in 1998 and has returned with films including Good Night, and Good Luck, Michael Clayton and Gravity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Clooney has defended Mark Ruffalo\u2019s right to criticise the proposed $111bn Paramount takeover of Warner Bros Discovery,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-834421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}