A constellation of stars are lining up against Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, expressing fears the blockbuster merger would devastate the industry and shrink production jobs.

The letter was signed by nearly 1,000 artists and movie creators, including such big names as Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, Noah Wyle, Joaquin Phoenix, Kristen Stewart and Jane Fonda, whose Committee for the First Amendment helped organize the campaign.

“This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries — and the audiences we serve — can least afford it,” according to the letter. “The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world.”

Paramount, in a statement, pushed back against the artists’ concerns. Tech scion David Ellison and his team believes the blockbuster deal makes sense — particularly because of turmoil in the entertainment business, the company said.

“This is also a moment when the industry has been facing significant disruption—and the need for strong, creative-first and well-capitalized companies that can continue to invest in storytelling has never been greater,” Paramount said.

The Hollywood workforce has shrunk by more than 42,000 jobs between 2022 and 2024, according to a recent study. The economy has not bounced back following shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the twin labor strikes three years ago.

Thousands of film workers have been searching for work — but many of the big opportunities have moved abroad.

The strikes prompted studio executives to reset their output after previously spending big to build streaming services to compete with Netflix.

Two other consolidations led to widespread cutbacks: Walt Disney Co.’s acquisition of Fox entertainment assets in 2019, and Discovery’s takeover of AT&T’s WarnerMedia four years ago.

The resulting entity — Warner Bros. Discovery, led by David Zaslav — instituted deep cost cuts and thousands of layoffs to cut expenses because the firm was nearly drowning in deal debt — $43 billion — from the day Zaslav took the helm.

Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. would result in a significantly higher debt load, $79 billion in debt, prompting concerns from the group and others about further downsizing.

Ellison, the 43-year-old son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is leading the effort to buy Warner Bros. Discovery to prop up Paramount, which the family acquired in August.

In late February, Ellison’s Paramount Skydance prevailed in a nearly six-month bidding war after Netflix unexpectedly bowed out when the elder Ellison agreed to financially back his son’s $111-billion deal.

“We have been clear in our commitments to do just that: increasing output to a minimum of 30 high-quality feature films annually with full theatrical releases, continuing to license content, and preserving iconic brands with independent creative leadership,” Paramount said, adding that such promises should ensure that “creators have more avenues for their work, not fewer.”

Warner shareholders will be asked to approve the merger April 23.

Ellison is pushing to wrap the deal up this summer.

“We are deeply concerned by indications of support for this merger that prioritize the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good,” the letter said. “The integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry would be grievously compromised. Competition is essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. So is thoughtful regulation and enforcement.”

The group urged California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and his fellow state attorneys general to sue to block the transaction.

Bonta has told The Times that his office is reviewing the transaction to see if it violates antitrust rules. Two historic movie studios, several streaming services and dozens of cable channels would be brought under one roof.

“Media consolidation has already weakened one of America’s most vital global industries,” the group said, “one that has long shaped culture and connected people around the world.”

Bonta’s office is leading the charge against another merger, TV station giant Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2-billion takeover of Virginia-based Tegna. Eight state attorneys general, including Bonta, have sued to block that deal. A judge is expected to rule on whether to issue a preliminary injunction later this week.

Hours after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at his San Francisco home, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman addressed the criticism surrounding artificial intelligence that appears to have been the impetus for the attack.

In a lengthy blog post, Altman shared a family photo of his husband and child, stating he hopes it might convince people not to repeat the attack despite their opinions on him.

The San Francisco Police Department arrested a 20-year-old man in connection with the Friday morning attack but did not publicly comment on the motivation. Altman and his company, the maker of ChatGPT, have been at the center of a heated debate about whether AI will change the world for better or worse.

“While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally,” Altman wrote.

The rise of AI chatbots that can generate text, images and code has raised concerns about whether there are enough guardrails around the development of the powerful technology.

From job displacement to the effects of AI on mental health and war, critics have been vocal about their fears. Families have also sued technology companies including OpenAI and Google, alleging in lawsuits that their chatbots contributed to the death of their loved ones. OpenAI has faced backlash after striking a deal with the Department of Defense shortly after its rival Anthropic raised AI safety concerns and lost its contract.

Politicians in California and other states have been passing new laws that target AI safety. And groups that aim to stop the development of AI have regularly protested outside OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters.

In the blog post, Altman acknowledged the fear and anxiety surrounding AI was “justified” because “we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever.” But he also said that people will do “incredible things” with AI and that “technological progress can make the future unbelievably good.”

Altman has become a controversial figure as companies race to advance AI. In 2023, OpenAI’s board of directors fired Altman, stating that he wasn’t “consistently candid” in his communications with the board and that board members had lost confidence in his ability to lead the company. OpenAI’s mission is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity,” the board said at the time. Facing pressure from its employees and investors, OpenAI reinstated Altman as chief executive less than a week after he was pushed out. A new board was put in place and members who supported ousting Altman left.

Altman said in the blog post that he has made mistakes and done things he’s not proud of, describing himself as “conflict-averse.”

“I am not proud of handling myself badly in a conflict with our previous board that led to a huge mess for the company,” he wrote.

Since his return, OpenAI has expanded its presence in healthcare, retail, defense and other industries. But controversy has followed the company. OpenAI is currently in a legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk, who has accused the company of abandoning its nonprofit founding mission in a case that’s expected to head to trial. Musk, a co-founder and early investor in OpenAI, alleges he was manipulated into funding what he thought was a nonprofit but turned into a “moneymaking endeavor.” OpenAI alleges that Musk, who runs rival xAI, is suing to slow down a competitor.

Last week, the New Yorker published a lengthy story about Altman that posed the question about whether he could be trusted.

In his blog post, Altman referenced an “incendiary article” published about him but didn’t name the publication, adding that “words have power.” OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. On the social media site X, Altman said he regretted using certain words in his blog after an editor from the AI newsletter Transformer pointed out that Altman implied that a critical piece of journalism was responsible for the attack.

Altman said the attack happened at 3:45 a.m. on Friday but the Molotov cocktail “bounced off the house and no one got hurt.”

The San Francisco Police Department and OpenAI previously confirmed the attack on Friday. The suspect allegedly made threats to OpenAI’s headquarters after the attack at Altman’s home.

Several news outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, identified the suspect as Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama.

Moreno-Gama was booked on Friday on suspicion of making criminal threats, arson, attempted murder, possession of a destructive device and other charges. The Chronicle also cited a Substack that appeared to be from the suspect that includes posts titled “AI Existential Risk.”

The Times asked the San Francisco Police Department on Saturday whether the account belonged to the suspect.

“At this time we have no further updates to provide,” the department said in an e-mail.

Survivors of the devastating Eaton fire called on state lawmakers on Wednesday to pass a bill requiring audits of spending by Southern California Edison and the state’s two other big for-profit electric companies on wildfire prevention.

The survivors pointed to an investigation by The Times that found that Edison had not spent hundreds of millions of dollars that it told regulators before the fire was needed to keep its transmission system safe. Edison had begun charging customers for the costs.

“Californians funded the wildfire prevention,” Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, told members of the Assembly Utilities and Energy Commission on Wednesday. ”And we survivors paid the price when that work was not done.”

While the government’s investigation into the fire has not yet been released, Edison has said it believes that a century-old transmission line, which had not carried power since 1971, may have briefly re-energized on the night of Jan. 7, 2025, to ignite the fire. The inferno killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures in Altadena.

Chen’s wildfire survivors group and Consumer Watchdog sponsored the bill, known as Assembly Bill 1744. It would require the wildfire safety spending by Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric to be audited by an independent accounting firm.

The state Public Utilities Commission would have to consider the audits’ findings before agreeing to raise customer rates to cover even more wildfire spending.

“Had Edison known it would be accountable for those funds, that wildfire may not have started,” Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog told the committee, referring to the Eaton fire.

All three utilities said at the hearing they opposed the bill.

A lobbyist for San Diego Gas & Electric said he believed the audits were unnecessary because the commission was already reviewing the spending.

“We think it creates a duplicative process,” he said.

At the committee hearing, Edison’s lobbyist did not say why the company was opposed to the bill.

The company has previously said that safety is its top priority and that it does not believe maintenance on its transmission lines suffered before the Eaton fire.

Also voicing support for the bill at the hearing were survivors of other deadly wildfires in the state, including the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed much of the town of Paradise. Investigators found that the fire was ignited when equipment failed on a decades-old PG&E transmission line.

The bill’s author, Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner, an Encinitas Democrat, pointed to how independent audits of the three companies’ wildfire spending from 2019 to 2020 found that $2.5 billion could not be accounted for.

Those were the last independent audits of the three companies’ wildfire spending.

Despite the findings, the commission did not require the companies to return any of the questioned amounts to electric customers. Instead, the commission agreed the companies could spend billions of dollars more, Boerner said.

“This is frankly unacceptable,” she said.

Asked for a response to those audits, the lobbyist from San Diego Gas & Electric told the committee he wasn’t familiar with the findings.

California electric rates are the nation’s second highest after Hawaii.

In 2024, wildfire expenses amounted to 17% to 27% of the costs the three companies charge to consumers, according to a legislative analysis of Boerner’s bill. The average residential customer pays $250 to $490 a year for that spending.