George Clooney used a press conference ahead of receiving the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to weigh in on Hollywood's biggest current controversy: Paramount Skydance's pursuit of a merger with Warner Bros. He defended fellow actor Mark Ruffalo's right to criticise the deal, after Ruffalo was accused by Paramount of using "antisemitic tropes" when he claimed the Ellison family was complicit in "genocide" in Gaza. Clooney also questioned the commercial logic behind the merger itself, reflecting broader unease in the industry about consolidation and job losses.

Speaking to Variety on Wednesday, Clooney said he supported "free speech even when I completely disagree with it" and called Paramount's response to Ruffalo "ridiculous". He said he did not "see how the merger financially ends up making sense for the people who are trying to do it" and voiced concern that big companies swallowing smaller ones tends to cost jobs. Clooney, 65, also touched on artificial intelligence, the state of journalism under billionaire owners such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, and America's political climate, coining the term "kakistocracy" to describe current governance while expressing hope for a "restoration of normalcy" after the 2028 election.