By Sean Burch and Lucas Manfredi

Any consolidation on the scale of Friday morning’s surprise announcement by cable giants Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises that they plan to merge in a deal valued at $34.5 billion counts as rarified M&A these days.

Combining the No. 2 and No. 3 players, by revenue, in an industry is certain to raise a few eyebrows, but especially in media and entertainment, where business seems balanced precariously between ever-shifting tectonic plates.

By Drew Taylor

IATSE VFX members have voted to approve their first collective bargaining agreements since unionizing in 2023, the organization announced Friday. The VFX workers for Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures and James Cameron’s “Avatar” franchise made the agreements.

After successfully organizing, negotiating and ratifying first agreements, winning the same benefits and rights as their co-workers in other union crafts, these three units are, according to the union, “representative of a growing movement to unionize VFX workers in North America.”

By Sharon Knolle

Dr. Stacy Smith, founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, said she “started laughing” when the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences shared their standards for representation and inclusion for Oscars eligibility in 2020, arguing that by their new standards, “90 to 95%” of films already passed the test.

“That’s not criteria. It’s calling your buddies and saying, ‘What do you think should work?’ That’s not inclusion, and that isn’t the work of inclusion,” Smith told TheWrap founder and CEO Sharon Waxman at Friday’s launch of TheWrap’s Cannes Conversations in partnership with Brand Innovators. “You can’t expect that to succeed at all when everybody’s already met the criteria.”