Mark Ruffalo slammed Paramount’s cleared $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery takeover as a threat to free speech and jobs, while Paramount accused the actor of trafficking in antisemitic tropes.

A federal judge on Wednesday issued an order allowing Paramount to close its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, rejecting broader restrictions sought by opponents of the deal.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín described the outcome as a “reasonable factual and legal resolution.” The ruling followed a September settlement between Paramount and a California-led coalition of 12 state attorneys general that had sued in July to stop the transaction.

Fox Business reported that Paramount also hit back hard at actor Mark Ruffalo, a vocal Hollywood critic of the merger, saying he had invoked antisemitic tropes. Ruffalo blasted the cleared deal and called those accusations appalling and fundamentally dishonest.

Ruffalo framed the deal as oligarchs versus “everyday people”

Ruffalo did not hide his view of the outcome. On X, he called the merger a loss for the country and for workers who tried to stop it.

He wrote that the takeover “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.”

"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,"

Ruffalo posted, then widened the fight beyond one studio combination.

"This grassroots movement isn't going to fade away and neither is our resolve. 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,” he added. “Join us.”

That “oligarch billionaires” line is the kind of rhetoric Paramount flagged. Corporate mergers invite hard scrutiny on competition and jobs. They do not require Hollywood stars to cast dealmakers as a corrupt class crushing ordinary people. When a company calls that framing antisemitic, the actor’s own words are what readers should weigh.

State AGs sued first, then took production promises

California Attorney General Rob Bonta led the 12-state coalition that went to court in July. The states argued the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery combination would reduce competition and hand the merged firm excessive market power in film distribution and basic cable programming.

Ruffalo had publicly pressured Bonta not to settle. Just days before the agreement was announced, he posted, “Don’t you dare @AGRobBonta, do not cave.”

Bonta’s office did settle. On Sept. 21, the states resolved their claims. Bonta’s office said the combined company made an “enforceable commitment to significantly increase domestic production.”

Those commitments were concrete. Paramount agreed to release at least 30 movies a year in each of the first two years, then 32 movies a year over the next three years, with at least four independent releases each year. It also agreed to spend at least an additional $1.5 billion on U.S. film production over five years compared with its 2025 spending levels.

Judge Martínez-Olguín then cleared the path to close and turned aside objections that sought tighter limits. Reuters reported the companies expect to finish the deal on Oct. 6.

A judge saw a workable bargain. Activists wanted a political scalp.

The sequence is plain. Democratic state attorneys general filed suit. They extracted binding production and release terms. A federal judge called the package a reasonable factual and legal resolution. The $110 billion acquisition moves forward.

Ruffalo’s campaign treated settlement itself as surrender. He wanted the deal blocked, not conditioned. When the states took enforceable U.S. production spending and minimum theatrical output instead, he labeled the result a win for “corrupt oligarch billionaires.”

That is a familiar Hollywood posture. Market consolidation becomes a morality play. Studio executives become villains by category. Job losses and free speech get invoked as slogans even as the settlement locks in more domestic production and a floor on annual releases, including independent films.

Paramount’s response drew a brighter line. The company did not merely dispute Ruffalo’s policy take. It said his remarks trafficked in antisemitic tropes, a charge the actor rejected as dishonest. Readers can judge the “oligarch billionaires... line their own pockets” language against that claim without needing a studio press office to finish the thought.

None of this erases real questions about concentration in entertainment. Large mergers can squeeze suppliers, reshape carriage talks, and change what gets greenlit. Antitrust enforcers exist for that reason. What they do not exist to do is ratify a celebrity veto when elected attorneys general already traded litigation risk for written production commitments and a judge found the bargain sound.

Ruffalo promised the “grassroots movement” would not fade. He is entitled to keep organizing. He is not entitled to redefine a settled, court-cleared transaction as proof that only bad faith billionaires ever win.

When the courtroom record shows enforceable U.S. spending and release minimums, and the loudest opposition still runs on oligarch talk, the politics are doing more work than the facts.