Eva Longoria has spent two decades navigating Hollywood as an actress, producer, and director. So when she says the proposed Warner Bros. Discovery-Paramount Global merger makes her nervous, it's worth listening.
"Consolidation is scary," Longoria told Deadline this week. And she's not wrong.
When Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019, we were promised that the merger would create more opportunities, more content, more choices. Instead, entire divisions were shuttered. Development slates were cut. Executives who'd spent decades championing diverse voices found themselves out of jobs. The Fox 2000 label - which had produced everything from Hidden Figures to The Devil Wears Prada - was eliminated entirely.
Now we're facing another mega-merger, and Longoria is asking the questions that should be front and center: What happens to the filmmakers? What happens to the projects that don't fit the algorithm? What happens when five studios become four become three?
The business argument for these mergers always sounds reasonable. Scale. Efficiency. Competing with streaming giants. Shareholder value. But "efficiency" in Hollywood often means "fewer bets on unproven voices." "Scale" frequently translates to "prioritizing franchises over original stories." And "competing with streaming giants" has somehow led to more consolidation rather than more competition.
Longoria, who has produced projects through her UnbeliEVAble Entertainment company, understands what happens when studios consolidate. Fewer buyers means fewer chances to get projects greenlit. Fewer executives means fewer champions for stories that don't fit the Marvel/DC/franchise template. And for creators from underrepresented communities - which has long advocated for - consolidation often means the first budgets that get cut.
