Actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming and Benedict Wong have written a film Editorial in the Guardian Calling on the UK to block Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros., arguing that the deal threatens to cause “serious harm to the British public”.
British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy – who has remained in her post amid a cabinet reshuffle as new Prime Minister Andy Burnham took office – had previously said she “intended to intervene” in the massive $111 billion deal which, if successful, would undoubtedly transform not just Hollywood, but the global film and television industry.
Among a range of issues, actors cited concerns about the livelihoods of British film and TV crews, the financing of independent films, and the loss of public broadcaster Channel 5 to Hollywood ownership.
“As actors and public figures who have spent their careers in the arts in Britain – working with British crews, on British stages and sets – we have a responsibility to audiences who support, enjoy and consume the art we make,” wrote famous Marvel actors (Cumberbatch and Wong), as well as Cumming (Traitors) on Monday in an article entitled “The disaster of television and cinema could be disastrous for what you see and what you know. Act now to stop this.”
“The UK is threatened by a media consolidation that will harm our workers, our culture and the public – but we can stop it.” They state that they are encouraged by Nandy’s statements that she wants to investigate the threat to the public interest, and acknowledge that she is not acting alone. This month, 12 US states, led by California, filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the merger, warning that it would “raise prices, reduce the number of films produced, and reduce the quality of what audiences see,” the men said. Over the weekend, news broke that Larry Ellison’s Paramount had agreed not to close the acquisition until a court decided whether the deal violated antitrust laws.
Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong add that “their lawsuit underscores the danger; however, it cannot do what the UK is doing for it,” adding that the EU supports the merger conditionally and makes its own decisions. “The battle against this merger is now being fought on two fronts, with Nandy leading one of them. If her department decides to intervene, it could be one of the most important decisions made by any UK culture secretary for film, TV and media in a generation,” they explain.
“That’s why. We’ve spent our lives working in this industry. We know what it’s like from the inside: the sound stages at Leavesden (studio), the crews that go from production to production, the editors and camera operators and costume designers whose names scroll through the credits at the end of the film. These are our dear friends and colleagues, who make the shows we all love, produce the news that educates the audience and film the sporting events we enjoy together,” the actors wrote.
The men say UK film and television are more than just “pictures on your screens; they are the lives and livelihoods of thousands of workers and families, whose work supports local economies”. They cite buoyant figures, such as the 180,000 jobs supported through industry and production spending of £6.8bn reported last year. “It is one of the things the UK still does better than almost any other country, and it is a cultural heritage we must protect,” they say.
They add that they watched with “increasing concern” what the merger did to “the breadth and depth of the work we produce”, before realizing that independent film takings at Sundance, the leading independent film festival, had fallen by half between 2019 and 2025. “Award-winning documentaries – films that have won Oscars and topped festival juries – struggled to find commercial distribution because they touched on topics that the remaining handful of buyers found uncomfortable. Every merger This genre narrows the path through which stories can reach audiences.
For service to Warner Bros. The company’s debt is estimated at $84 billion, and executives have promised investors $6 billion in “synergies,” Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong said. “In plain English, this means redundancies, production cancellations, fewer films commissioned, and less risk,” they add.
“This is exactly what makes the Paramount-WBD merger so dangerous,” they write, adding that it has happened many times before, such as Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia in 2022, which resulted in finished films being shelved and thousands of jobs lost, or Skydance’s merger with Paramount last year when about 2,000 people were laid off.
They admit they are very concerned about Paramount’s acquisition of Channel 5, one of the UK’s public broadcasters, as well as CNN International. “The CNN and CBS news archives are among the most important collections of broadcast news in the world, containing more than 4.25 million videos, photos and media covering nearly half a century of history. If a commercially interested owner controls access to both, he controls the raw material of our historical memory… Combine these newsrooms into one company, and commercial concerns on the board – or political debts – will determine what millions of people see and what they never learn exists.”
They add: “And we know something about this particular owner’s intentions. Paramount CEO reportedly told Donald Trump that he would make ‘sweeping changes’ at CNN if the deal goes through.”
“Actors are often told to stay away from legal arguments,” Cumberbatch, Cumming, and Wong write. “We understand the instinct. But we’ve spent our lives on enough UK sets, worked alongside enough UK crews, and seen enough great work from the UK struggling to find a buyer to know that this isn’t someone else’s argument. It’s ours.”
