{"id":962709,"date":"2026-07-27T16:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/962709\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:02:16","slug":"benedict-cumberbatch-calls-for-u-k-to-block-paramount-wbd-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/962709\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedict Cumberbatch Calls for U.K. to Block Paramount-WBD Merger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tActors Benedict Cumberbatch<\/a>, Alan Cumming<\/a> and Benedict Wong<\/a> have penned an op-ed in The <\/a>Guardian\u00a0<\/a>calling for the U.K. to block the Paramount<\/a>\u2013Warner Bros<\/a>. merger, arguing that the deal threatens to inflict \u201cimmense harm on the British public.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe U.K. culture secretary Lisa Nandy \u2014\u00a0who has remained in her post amid a cabinet reshuffle with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham taking office<\/a> \u2014\u00a0has previously said she was \u201cminded to intervene\u201d in the $111 billion mega-deal that, if successful, will undoubtedly change not just Hollywood, but the global film and TV industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong a host of issues, the actors cite concerns over the livelihoods of British film and TV crews, independent film financing, and the consolidation of news publications.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs actors and public figures who have spent our careers in the arts in Britain \u2014 working with British crews, on British stages and sets \u2014\u00a0we have a responsibility to the public who support, enjoy and consume the art we make,\u201d wrote the famed Marvel actors (Cumberbatch and Wong), as well as Cummng (The Traitors), on Monday in a piece titled \u201cA TV and cinema calamity could be disastrous for what you watch and what you know. Act now to stop that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe U.K. is being threatened by a media merger that would harm our workers, our culture and the public \u2014\u00a0but we can stop it.\u201d They mention that they are encouraged by Nandy\u2019s statements that she wants to investigate the threat to public interest, and acknowledge that she is not acting alone. This month, 12 U.S. states, led by California,\u00a0sued in federal court\u00a0to block the merger, warning that it would \u201craise prices, shrink the number of films made and degrade the quality of what audiences see,\u201d said the men.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the weekend, news broke that David Ellison\u2019s Paramount\u00a0agreed not to close the takeover<\/a> until the court decides whether the deal violates antitrust laws. A spokesperson for the company said this is the \u201cfastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached.\u201d Ellison himself has routinely said the deal will embrace \u201ccutting-edge innovation\u201d and inject some fresh blood into a tired industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong maintain that the filed lawsuit \u201cconfirms the danger; it cannot, however, do the U.K.\u2019s work for it.\u201d They explain that the the EU, which has conditionally backed the merger, makes its own decisions. \u201cThe fight against this merger now runs on two fronts, and Nandy commands one of them. Should her department decide to intervene, it may prove one of the most important decisions any culture secretary has taken for U.K. film, television and media in a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe men say that U.K. film and TV are not just \u201cimages on your screens; they are lives and livelihoods of thousands of workers and families, whose work supports local economies.\u201d They cite buoying figures, such as the 180,000 jobs supported through the industry and the \u00a36.8 billion production spend reported last year. \u201cIt is one of the things the U.K. still does better than almost anyone, and a cultural heritage we must protect,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey add that they have watched \u201cwith growing alarm\u201d what consolidation does to the \u201cbreadth and depth of the work we produce,\u201d before recognizing that independent film acquisitions at the leading independent film festival, Sundance,\u00a0fell by half\u00a0between 2019 and 2025. \u201cAward-winning documentaries \u2013 films that\u00a0won Oscars\u00a0and\u00a0topped festival juries\u00a0\u2013 have\u00a0struggled to find commercial distribution because they touched subjects the remaining handful of buyers found inconvenient. Every merger of this kind narrows the funnel through which stories can reach audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo service Warner Bros.\u2019 estimated $84 billion in debt, executives have promised investors around $6bn in \u201csynergies,\u201d Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong mention. \u201cIn plain English, that means redundancies, cancelled productions, fewer films commissioned and fewer risks taken,\u201d they add.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat is precisely what makes the Paramount-WBD merger so dangerous,\u201d they write, adding that it has happened so many times before, such as Discovery\u2019s merging with WarnerMedia in 2022, which led to the shelving of finished films and thousands of job losses, or Skydance\u2019s merger with Paramount last year when around 2,000 people were laid off.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey admit they are extremely concerned about the consolidation of news outlets like Channel 5, one of the U.K.\u2019s public broadcasters, as well as CNN International<\/a>. \u201cThe CNN and CBS news archives [are] among the world\u2019s most important broadcast news collections, with\u00a0more than 4.25m\u00a0videos, images and media spanning nearly half a century of history. If one commercially interested owner controls access to both, they control the raw material of our historical memory\u2026 Fold those newsrooms into a single company, and one boardroom\u2019s commercial anxieties \u2014 or political debts \u2014\u00a0determine what millions of people see and what they never learn existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd we know something about this particular proprietor\u2019s intentions. Paramount\u2019s chief executive reportedly told Donald Trump that he would make \u2018sweeping changes\u2019 to CNN if the deal went through,\u201d they add.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cActors are often told to stay out of legal arguments,\u201d write Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong. \u201cWe understand the instinct. But we have spent our lives on enough U.K. sets, worked alongside enough U.K. crews and watched enough brilliant work from the U.K. struggle to find a buyer to know that this is not someone else\u2019s argument. It is ours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming and Benedict Wong have penned an op-ed in The Guardian\u00a0calling for the U.K.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":962710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[79278,100118,91354,171,1801,15329,376,67,132,68,27281,1021],"class_list":["post-962709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alan-cumming","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-benedict-wong","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-paramount","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-warner-bros-discovery","tag-warner-bros"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116992786182889127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/962710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}