(by Francesco De Filippo)
"A disaster." This is the blunt assessment from Gary Marenzi, former president of Paramount International Television and later of MGM Worldwide Television and UIP Pay Television, regarding the possible merger between media and entertainment giants Paramount Skydance Corporation and Warner Bros Discovery, a deal worth 110 billion dollars.
"If it happened, they would lay off 6,000 to 7,000 people and there would be a problem for freedom of the press," Marenzi continues. "Under Trump, Paramount has shifted far to the right," and a potential merger would lead to an even greater compression of impartiality in news coverage. For Marenzi, who today runs his own production company, "writers and producers in Hollywood are against the deal." The objective is unclear, and it could involve "the sale of various branches of the company, so there is no reason for it other than the fact that David Ellison, the owner of Paramount, wants to expand further." And for Trump to have more power? "And for Trump to have more power." For producers, the "nightmare" is finding themselves operating in an "industry where five giant streamers decide everything." A situation that "is not good for the market, because the industry must be pluralistic."
The merger would concentrate control of numerous media outlets under a single company, including CNN, Warner Bros. Pictures and the streaming service HBO Max, but for now it has been pushed back to 2027 following a lawsuit filed by a coalition of state attorneys general representing 12 states in the Northern District Court of California.
Marenzi, who has overseen the distribution of films such as James Bond and Star Trek, and for years served as president of Paramount and MGM, frequently visits Italy, the country of his family's origins, and is currently working on the development of a film based on the short story "The White Lady" by Elisabetta de Dominis, inspired by the medieval legend of the Castle of Duino, the subject of Rainer Maria Rilke's Elegies. The vision is a film costing less than 5 million dollars, to be shot in English in locations across Friuli Venezia Giulia.
For the California-based executive, film production today is divided into "big films costing over 100 million dollars, with another 100 million for marketing, and films costing less than 10 million dollars. Between 10 and 100 million, very few films get made." Then there are the streamers: "Disney, Netflix, which broadcast films on TV just 45 days after their theatrical release — after all, televisions are big these days, they stream in 4K, 8K... and going to the cinema is somewhat expensive, so people wait and watch films at home." There are still a great many independent films, though... "Yes, they go to festivals but can't find a distributor, perhaps because their subject matter is too niche, perhaps they are too artistic." Today "streamers make decisions algorithmically, but I have great faith in human creativity, without AI: in the hands of a true artist, you can create a world never imagined before."
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA
