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Brave New Films founder Robert Greenwald launches the short doc with an open letter defending Mark Ruffalo and calling to #BlockTheMerger
Brave New Films created a fake “60 Minutes” episode cut together using previously aired footage that imagines what it would look like if the network covered its own controversies amid the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” Robert Greenwald, founder of the nonprofit advocacy group and production company, said in a statement. The documentary, available to view in full below, is aptly titled “Murdering ‘60 Minutes.’”
Writing in an open letter Wednesday, Greenwald said that his frustrations with Paramount’s Ellison family led him to create the 25-minute documentary to outline what it may look like if the storied institution looked inward to “investigate the efforts to murder ‘60 Minutes’” and how the proposed merger and transformation of CBS News under Bari Weiss’ leadership have affected its integrity.
“Our response is to do what we have always done at Brave New Films: investigate, document, expose what is happening, and give people the information they need to fight back,” the founder wrote wrote.
The documentary opens up with a message from former “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley, accusing Weiss of “murdering” the news program followed by a clip of Jane Fonda calling out the Paramount-WBD merger as a means of authoritarian control.
Watch it below:
Greenwald also defended Mark Ruffalo and criticized Paramount executives in his letter for suggesting that antisemitism was behind opposition to their proposed Warner Bros. merger. He argued that the claims of antisemitism against the actor were misguided.
“These attacks are disgusting and dishonest. As a New York Jew, I feel particular pain watching antisemitism used as a propaganda tool by powerful people seeking to discredit their critics while they work to take control of more and more of our media,” he wrote. “And they come in the context of a growing climate of fear among people in Hollywood who want to oppose this merger.”
He added: “We should fight antisemitism wherever it exists. But we should fight just as hard against cynical attempts to use accusations of antisemitism to shut down legitimate debate.”
Greenwald also pointed out that Ruffalo and Matt Stoller previously met artists who were afraid to put their names on the record against the merger because they feared being blacklisted and that Paramount punished The Ankler by pulling advertising from the site after its editorial director and chief columnist, Richard Rushfield, was seen with a bag of “Block the Merger” buttons.
Paramount currently faces a legal battle led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta that is delaying the studio’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount CEO David Ellison and Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim have publicly called for a settlement, and said they’ve offered concessions. Bonta has also said he’s open to settlement talks but urged Paramount to offer structural remedies, such as divestments, rather than behavioral remedies like their 30-film pledge.
In recent weeks, several unions, including Directors’ Guild of America, IATSE and trade organization Cinema United, have called for a settlement. Cinemark, the CEOs of AMC Theaters and Regal, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and WME Group executive chairman have all also supported the merger.
