This week, more than 2,000 film and TV stars and creatives, including Hollywood stars like Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, and directors like David Fincher and Denis Villeneuve, signed an open letter to oppose the pending Warner Bros.–Paramount Deal. The letter described their deep concern about the merger and how it prioritized the interests of a few stakeholders rather than the industry as a whole. Now, Avatar director James Cameron has stepped into the discussion and voiced his opinion in favor of the deal.
Speaking to the AP, Cameron, who also opposed the idea of Netflix owning Warner Bros., made it clear that he stands with David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance. “I’m a supporter of it. I know it’s controversial,” he said. “I know David quite well. And I know that he really cares about movies.”
Cameron, of course, has a long history with the studio and even worked closely with David Ellison on a few projects over the years, including Terminator: Dark Fate. He seems to believe Ellison’s promise to grow the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. movie releases to 30 or more a year.
“He’s the right man for the job to run a major studio, and now it looks like he’s going to have two of them, you know, swept under his leadership, which doesn’t bother me at all.”
On the other end, Cameron has been openly skeptical of Ted Sarandos and the way Netflix handles theatrical releases. “It’s sucker bait… I think that’s fundamentally rotten to the core,” he recently said.
In other words, he believes that Paramount cares more about movies and the industry than Netflix does.
Meanwhile, the rest of Hollywood doesn’t seem to agree with him. Names like Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adam McKay have all voiced their strong opinion about the merger and the fears that it could come with massive layoffs, cancelled projects and a lot of “streamlining.”
Right now, though, the deal seems to be moving forward, with or without objections. David Zaslav and the Warner Bros. Discovery board want out, and the financial upside is obviously hard to ignore.
The signatures on the open letter keep piling up. But you won’t see James Cameron’s signature anywhere on there.
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