British actors urge UK to block Paramount-Warner merger

A trio of prominent British actors has issued a forceful call for the United Kingdom government to block the proposed $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, warning it poses a severe threat to the nation's creative industry, jobs, and media landscape. Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming, and Benedict Wong made their case in a guest column published in The Guardian on Monday, July 27, 2026, describing the deal as a "TV and cinema calamity."

The actors argue the consolidation would inflict immense harm on the British public by endangering an industry that supports approximately 180,000 jobs and generated a production spend of £6.8 billion last year alone. They contend that such mergers historically lead to redundancies, cancelled productions, and fewer creative risks, citing job losses following the WarnerMedia-Discovery and Paramount-Skydance mergers as precedent. Every merger of this kind narrows the funnel through which stories can reach audiences, they wrote.

Their appeal is directed at Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who has stated she is "minded to intervene" in the merger. The actors applauded this stance but urged her to take definitive action....