open letter

About 200 people gathered on Paramount’s Melrose Avenue lot for a screening of “Red Alert,” a four-part scripted drama portraying the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel from the perspective of six victims.

The host of the Sept. 30 event was Paramount Chairman and Chief Executive David Ellison, who shared how he had chatted with Academy Award-nominated producer Lawrence Bender a few weeks earlier at a memorial service for legendary Hollywood power broker Skip Brittenham. That’s where Ellison learned that Bender’s Israeli-backed series, “Red Alert,” needed a home in the U.S.

Ellison quickly volunteered. “It was a fast ‘yes,’ ” he told the group.

On Tuesday, “Red Alert” debuted on the company’s streaming service, Paramount+, marking the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The initial Hamas assault left about 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 250 kidnapped.

The high-profile project comes two months after Ellison assumed control of Paramount in an $8-billion buyout by his family, led by billionaire and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners.

Since the deal closed Aug. 7, David Ellison has moved to position the company slightly right of the political center, while also taking on polarizing issues. The scion has been unafraid to challenge those in Hollywood who’ve called for a boycott of Israel.

More than two years after the Oct. 7 attack, a deep divide remains in Hollywood over the subsequent Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, Paramount condemned an open letter in support of Palestinians, which has gained steam in Hollywood. More than 5,000 people have signed the Film Workers for Palestine letter, including such prominent filmmakers as Adam McKay, Ava DuVernay, Alex Gibney and Hannah Einbinder.

The effort called for a boycott of Israeli film festivals, institutions and projects to help spur an end to the war in Gaza. The campaign was designed in the vein of South African boycotts decades ago, which proved to be instrumental in ending apartheid, that country’s racial segregation.

No other major studio followed Paramount.

In its Sept. 12 statement, Paramount said it disagreed with the Film Workers call to avoid film screenings or to work with Israeli film institutions.

“At Paramount, we believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” the company said. “Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”

The Film Workers group accused Paramount of misrepresenting the intent of its pledge, saying it did not target individual filmmakers.

But critics counter that filmmakers who engage with Israeli cultural institutions would likely fall under the ban.

More than 1,200 industry players including actors Mayim Bialik and Liev Schreiber and Paramount board member Sherry Lansing signed an opposing open letter released by the nonprofit organization Creative Community For Peace that accuses the Film Workers for Palestine of advocating “arbitrary censorship and the erasure of art.”

The Palestinian supporters dismissed the characterization. “The Film Workers Pledge to End Complicity is an explicitly anti-racist and non-violent campaign that is grounded in international law and the moral clarity of a global majority opposed to genocide,” the group said in a statement this week. “It is the first major refusal of the international film industry at large that targets complicit Israeli film institutions and companies.”

“Red Alert” was co-produced by a prominent Israeli production company, Keshet Media Group, and received funding from the Jewish National Fund-USA and the Israel Entertainment Fund. The series premiered last weekend on Israel’s popular television channel Keshet 12. Keshet produced the Hebrew-language series “Prisoners of War” that Showtime later adapted into the award-winning American drama “Homeland.”

During the late September screening at Paramount, Ellison spoke of the need for such projects as “Red Alert” to remember the atrocities as well as stories of survival and heroism.

“We at Paramount, we are here to tell stories that last forever,” Ellison said. “We are not here to debate politics or platforms or to argue about east or west. And ‘Red Alert’ is the very embodiment of that mission, and I couldn’t be prouder to support this series.”

Critics note that Ellison’s father, Larry, the co-founder of Oracle, is a prominent supporter of Israel, contributing millions to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

Others in Hollywood have found fault with Israel’s government and its conduct in the Gaza war, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants.

The United Nations, rights groups, experts and many Western governments accuse Israel of committing genocide. Israel denies the charge.

During a May 2024 Simon Wiesenthal Center gala in his honor, WME Group Executive Chairman Ari Emanuel sharply denounced Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for his ouster. Emanuel’s remarks were met with cheers and jeers and some attendees walked out.

In his Oscar acceptance speech last year, Jonathan Glazer, director of the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” asked “Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist?”

Weeks later, Steven Spielberg called out the rise of antisemitism as well as the ongoing war.

“We can rage against the heinous acts committed by the terrorists of October 7th and also decry the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza,” Spielberg said during an event celebrating the anniversary of the USC Shoah Foundation.

Paramount’s opposition to the Film Workers’ pledge and other recent moves, including buying the Free Press news site for $150 million and installing its founder, journalist Bari Weiss, as the editor in chief at CBS News, has rattled a small group of Paramount employees.

David Ellison recruited Weiss, who has been public about her support for Israel, for the prominent role.

The division was roiled by Paramount’s efforts to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview a year ago with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount this summer agreed to pay $16 million to end Trump’s suit, which 1st Amendment experts viewed as a spurious shakedown.

Weeks later, Trump appointees on the Federal Communications Commission approved the Ellison family’s takeover of Paramount.

The employee group, which calls itself Paramount Employees of Conscience, said they have sent two letters to Paramount leaders in the last month to voice their concerns but have not received a reply. In a statement, the group noted that while Paramount+ was distributing “Red Alert,” the company had not offered “equivalent programming about Palestinian experiences of the genocide in Gaza.”

“How can a company with this supposed creative mission actively ignore, suppress, and silence internal calls for years to champion stories that shed a light on the reality that marginalized and excluded communities, particularly Palestinians, face every day?” the group asked in a Sept. 17 letter addressed to Paramount’s leadership.

Paramount declined to comment.

The group includes about 30 employees, according to one member who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution.

Paramount employees separately are bracing for a steep round of layoffs, which is expected next month. Ellison’s firm Skydance Media and RedBird promised Wall Street that they would find more than $2 billion in cost cuts at Paramount.

“We know the Ellisons are formidable, powerful and have a lot of resources,” said the Paramount employee. “But we are here to interrupt a culture of silence…. Silence within the industry becomes complicity.”

Before Disney announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to ABC, the dialogue about the indefinite pause on his late-night show had continued to heat up.

Protesters packed the Hollywood block where Kimmel’s show is taped and sounded off both online and in public displays since the announcement of the suspension last week, and a horde of actors, writers, musicians and artists made their opinions on the matter clear.

Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Kerry Washington, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Maya Rudolph and more than 400 other artists signed an open letter organized by the American Civil Liberties Union calling for the defense of free speech in the wake of Kimmel’s benching.

The letter, which was published Monday, says Kimmel’s suspension marks “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation” and said that the government’s “attempt to silence its critics” runs “counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees.”

“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter continues. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power — because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

The letter came together over the weekend, according to Jessica Weitz, director of artist and entertainment engagement at the ACLU. The list of names continued to grow after the letter was published, she said.

“Behind those signatures are teams of people who made their own calls to their networks to ask people to join, feeling strongly that this attack on free expression must be called out,” Weitz said in a statement to The Times. “When speech is being targeted with so much precision, it takes courage from every single person to speak out — and the creative community is meeting the urgency of this moment.”

Kimmel’s late-night program, which airs weeknights on ABC, has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The decision came after two major owners of ABC affiliates said they were dropping the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Late-night hosts were quick to respond to the news, with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon each commenting on Kimmel’s situation in their Thursday episodes.

Over the weekend, HBO talk shows “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” weighed in on the controversy, beginning with Maher, who focused on Kimmel in his monologue Friday. Maher referred to “Politically Incorrect,” his late-night show that was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were “not cowardly.” Kimmel’s show replaced Maher’s slot.

“I got canceled before cancel even had a culture,” Maher said. “This s— ain’t new. It’s worse. We’ll get to that. But you know, ABC, they are steady. ABC stands for ‘Always be caving.’ So Jimmy, pal, I am with you. I support you. And on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland.”

Maher, who is a self-described “old-school liberal” and has been critical of the Democratic Party in recent years, said he disagreed with Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s suspected killer but believed he shouldn’t lose his job over them.

“You have the right to be wrong or to have any opinion you want, he said. “That’s what the 1st Amendment is all about.”

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver zeroed in on Kimmel’s suspension and the Federal Communications Commission during his Sunday night episode. He blasted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, directly addressed Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and dove into the implications of the suspension in a nearly 30-minute-long segment.

“Kimmel is by no means the first casualty in Trump’s attacks on free speech. He’s just the latest canary in the coal mine — a mine that, at this point, now seems more dead canary than coal,” Oliver said. “This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point, and not because comedians are important, but because we are not. If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air and do so in plain view, it can do a f— of a lot worse.”

In addressing Disney head Iger, Oliver urged him to understand that “giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time.”

Oliver said his show is “lucky” to be in a different situation than Kimmel’s because neither HBO or its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, owns broadcast networks, meaning they are “much less susceptible to pressure from the FCC.” He then cut to a news segment about how Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, is preparing a bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which Oliver followed up with repeated expletives.

The women who host ABC’s “The View,” which is known for not shying away from hot-button topics, had been silent on the issue last week, but addressed Kimmel’s suspension Monday.

“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” host Whoopi Goldberg said. “I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.”

FCC head Carr has indicated that “The View” might be the next subject of a future investigation.

The panel, including Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin, also weighed in before Goldberg said, “We fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.”

Paramount on Friday sharply denounced a proposed boycott of Israeli film institutions by a group that calls itself Film Workers for Palestine and is supported by dozens of Hollywood luminaries.

Earlier this week, the group launched an open letter pledging to withhold support for Israeli film festivals, production companies and other organizations that the group said were involved in “genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

The letter has been signed by hundreds of individuals, including filmmakers Jonathan Glazer, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo.

“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” the group wrote. “In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”

The group pledged “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies,” which have been “implicated” in attacks on Palestinians. The group described its effort as being inspired by filmmakers joining the South African boycott over apartheid, a global campaign decades ago that proved influential in helping overturn the nation’s government.

Paramount, which was acquired last month by the Larry Ellison family and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, made clear its opposition to the filmmakers’ campaign.

“We believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” said an emailed statement attributed to the company. “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”

Paramount is the first studio to state a position on the divisive issue. An insider who was not authorized to speak about the internal debate said Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison and the company’s leadership team felt strongly about the need to speak out in opposition, believing that individuals should not be boycotted based on their nationality.

“The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world,” Paramount said. “We need more engagement and communication — not less.”

Twenty-five years ago, on a warm summer night in Los Angeles, Broadway stars Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald closed a show at the Hollywood Bowl with back-to-back encores of “Get Happy”/ “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Today, those happy days appear to be over for the two Tony Award winners.

In a May 26 interview with the New Yorker, LuPone ignited a firestorm when she referred to McDonald as “not a friend” and refused to comment on McDonald’s celebrated performance in “Gypsy.” (McDonald is nominated for a 2025 Tony Award in the category best actress in a leading role in a musical — its her 11th nomination.) LuPone also referred to Tony winner Kecia Lewis, who, like McDonald, is Black, as a “bitch.”

Speaking with Gayle King in a “CBS Mornings” clip, McDonald sounded surprised by LuPone’s comments. “If there’s a rift between us, I don’t know what it is,” she said. “That’s something that you’d have to ask Patti about. I haven’t seen her in about 11 years, just because I’ve been busy, just with life and stuff. I don’t know what rift she’s talking about. You’d have to ask her.” (A full interview is set to air this week, according to a “CBS Mornings” Instagram post.)

Broadway star Audra McDonald arrives on the red carpet at the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles in 2024.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Following public backlash, however, LuPone did something she rarely does. The outspoken diva apologized.

But that was not without some stage direction.

In an open letter from her colleagues in the theater community dated May 30, more than 500 actors, including Tony-winning actors Wendell Pierce, James Monroe Iglehart and Maleah Joi Moon, called LuPone’s language “racialized disrespect,” “bullying” and “harassment.” They asked the American Theatre Wing and Broadway League to discourage those who disparage fellow artists, including LuPone, from attending industry events “including the Tony Awards, fundraisers, and public programs.” (The 2025 Tony Awards are scheduled for June 8 in New York, and will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+.)

On Saturday, LuPone responded to the criticism in a statement on her Instagram account: “I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful. I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others …” She went on to write that she hopes to speak to McDonald and Lewis in person.

LuPone is well-versed in calling people out herself, particularly audience members who text during her theater performances. Last year, she even complained about noise from the Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen” when she was performing in “The Roommate” with Mia Farrow next door.

After LuPone asked the theater owner to fix the sound because she found it to be too loud, Lewis took offense and posted a video on Instagram, describing LuPone’s actions as “bullying,” “racially microaggressive” and “rude and rooted in privilege.” She also noted that “calling a Black show loud dismisses it.”

Last year, Lewis won a Grammy for best musical theater album and a Tony in the category best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical for “Hell’s Kitchen.”

Although flippant, LuPone’s words only serve to hurt everyone during a turbulent time for the arts in America, the open letter from the theater community said. “Our industry is under threat. The arts are being defunded, theater programs are disappearing, and artists are being pushed to the margins. We need each other now more than ever. We need community. We need leadership. And we need accountability.”

Humbled, LuPone agreed.

“I wholeheartedly agree with everything that was written in the open letter shared yesterday,” she wrote. “From middle school drama clubs to professional stages, theatre has always been about lifting each other up and welcoming those who feel they don’t belong anywhere else. I made a mistake, and I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right. Our entire theater community deserves better.”