Brian Fairbanks

Jane Fonda says standing against the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger is “sad for me because I like David Ellison very much” but it’s “not a personal thing”: “I am hopeful that we can stop it. They’re carrying so much debt. The Ellisons are carrying so much debt, and you know it’s being postponed now, so that they have to pay these huge sums. The merger would be terrible for consumers. Prices would go up. Thousands and thousands of people would lose their jobs. And as a creative, the fewer studios there are, the fewer places that we can take our products. We lose bargaining power. Unions lose their power. There’s a very robust and growing movement to stop the mergers. And it, you know, it’s sad for me because I like David Ellison very much. David’s Skydance financed 'Grace and Frankie,' my seven-year-long run for Netflix, and I got to know him, and I like him. But that doesn’t change things. This is not a personal thing. This is what it will do to the entertainment industry, which is already suffering terribly.” wp.me/pc8uak-1lHHgo

Could one of this year’s most acclaimed international films fall through the cracks at the #Oscars? • Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur,” a scathing portrait of corruption in Putin’s Russia that won the Grand Prize at Cannes, is emerging as one of the strongest contenders to represent France in the international feature Oscar race • But in recent years, the French industry has pushed back against the idea that the country should be represented by a foreign-born filmmaker working largely outside the French language • A dissident Russian filmmaker, Zvyagintsev lives in France with asylum status, where “Minotaur” was largely financed and produced. Russia is unlikely to submit the film because of its political stance, meaning it could miss awards season entirely if France passes. Read the full analysis from @ElsaKeslassy: variety.com/2026/film/global…