Jane Fonda has stepped into one of the movie business’s strangest recent pop-culture artifacts—the Nicole Kidman AMC preshow spot—and turned it into a warning shot against the proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. Discovery deal now facing a competing bid from Paramount.
In a short video released with the Committee for the First Amendment, Fonda echoes the cadence of Kidman’s 2021 cinema ad, then pivots to a darker punchline: “Somehow corporate greed feels good in a place like this. Somehow, mergers feel good in a place like this.” The parody frames Hollywood’s consolidation wave as a threat to jobs and creative choice, and it lands as regulators and investors weigh who ends up controlling Warner’s studios and HBO Max.
Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Dec. 5 that Netflix would buy Warner’s film and TV studios plus HBO Max and HBO after WBD separates its Global Networks assets into a new public company. Netflix valued the transaction at about $82.7 billion enterprise value and said it would maintain Warner’s current operations. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the combined company would “give audiences more of what they love” by pairing Warner’s library with Netflix’s global platform.
Days later, Paramount launched an unsolicited all-cash tender offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery at $30 per share, calling Netflix’s structure “inferior and uncertain” and arguing Paramount could clear approvals faster. Warner’s board said it would review Paramount’s offer with advisers but “is not modifying” its recommendation for the Netflix agreement and urged shareholders to take no action yet.
Labor groups and antitrust specialists have pushed back hard. The Writers Guild of America said, “This merger must be blocked,” arguing industry power has already concentrated in too few hands. Antitrust lawyer Abiel Garcia told Reuters that Netflix’s effort to justify the deal as needed to compete with YouTube “ultimately fails.” Northwestern professor Rick Morris warned that the combined streaming footprint could translate into “pricing power” that hits consumers if prices rise.
Fonda’s choice of target carried its own symbolism. AMC introduced the Kidman campaign in 2021 as a $25 million-plus push to sell the communal “big screen” experience, and the monologue later took on a meme life far beyond its marketing brief.
