George Clooney Says AI Will ‘Hurt Us’ and Questions Paramount and Warner Bros. Merger: ‘I Don’t Know How This Goes Through’

Add actor and director George Clooney to the list of Hollywood figures skeptical of the pending merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. While the two-time Oscar winner did not outright decry the Ellisons’ ongoing effort to bring together two studios during the press conference for his Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, Clooney did call it a “complicated” situation, saying, “I don’t know how it works out. I don’t know how this goes through. There’s so many issues involved.” Ultimately, what makes him question the viability of the deal are the financials. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have, it’s going to be very tricky to do,” said Clooney. “I don’t see how it financially ends up making sense for the people who are trying to do it.” Relatedly, Clooney supported his fellow actor Mark Ruffalo’s right to criticize Paramount, after his comments were accused of having antisemitic leanings, saying “that’s ridiculous. We’re not going to ban speech, but I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it. That’s important. In fact, it’s part of how a democracy works.” Clooney added, “We’re supposed to argue these things out and come to a conclusion based on the information that we take. So I will always support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely. I like him, he’s a good man.” The Venice honoree, who serves as an executive producer of Venice Spotlight selection “Furies” this year, and was at the festival last year as the star of “Jay Kelly,” also acknowledged that the WarnerMount merger would lead to major labor issues in Hollywood. “I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it usually means a lot of people lose their jobs. That’s the truth,” he said. “We’re going through a revolution in our industry. … AI is going to be a very big part of this industry. It’s going to hurt us in a lot of ways. If you’re a visual effects supervisor, you’re going to have trouble coming up because a lot of jobs are going to be taken away.” Artificial intelligence has been something Clooney has been doing more research on, with him joking, “I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I’m dead. It’s going to get complicated and it already is complicated.” But the filmmaker did express concern about Hollywood being unprepared for the new technology. “We’re kind of on our back foot on taking the lead on it. People are just now starting to. So it’s going to be a complicated time in our industry. So we’re going to have to find ways to survive.” Circling back to the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger, Clooney ended his thoughts by saying, “I’m always worried whenever one big company swallows up another big company, and we see that a lot.”