The head honchos at Paramount have been vocal about their position on the Gaza crisis. In September of last year, the firm made history by being the first major Hollywood studio to openly reject a high-profile letter signed by celebrities like Stone and Bardem, which called for a cultural boycott of Israeli film entities that were allegedly involved in “genocide and apartheid” against Palestinians. Later, Warner Bros. adopted the same stance.
According to sources who spoke to Variety, Paramount has even gone so far as to create a sort of blacklist of artists that the studio will not collaborate with because they are considered to be “overtly antisemitic”, “xenophobic”, and “homophobic”. It’s unknown whether the boycott signatories are included in that list.
Yorgos Lanthimos, Ava DuVernay, Boots Riley, Adam McKay, Olivia Colman, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Harris Dickinson, Guy Pearce, Jonathan Glazer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Abbi Jacobson, Eric Andre, Elliot Page, Payal Kapadia, Joaquin Phoenix, and Rooney Mara were among the 1,200 signatories of the pledge, which was released on Monday.
Additionally, according to Variety, Ellison wants to make Paramount a MAGA-friendly place, with more “America-centric” and “middle of the country”-oriented material in the TV and film operations. The film “Call of Duty”, written by Americana poet laureate Taylor Sheridan, is one of Paramount’s most valuable intellectual properties, and Peter Berg was recently chosen to direct it. Berg recently stated on “The Joe Rogan Experience”, “I think Trump’s doing some great things.”
