Hollywood
Warner Bros announce three Harry Potter spin-offs
MUMBAI: After a long wait, some good news for the Harry Potter fans, Warner Brothers has announced three new Harry potter spin-offs based on JK Rowling’s ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ to be released in 2016, 2018 and 2020.
The studio has also revealed that there will be three new installments of ‘The Lego Movie’ and 10 DC Comics superhero films, including ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Aquaman’.
The new film will feature characters from the fictional textbook written by Newt Scamander at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is a magizoologist who deals with magical creatures and also author of the textbook used by students at the exclusive Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book was mentioned in 49-year-old’s first novel in the series – ‘Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone’.
According to media reports, the stories will be neither prequels nor sequels and will take place about seven decades before Harry and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley enter Hogwarts.
To be directed by David Yates, the film-maker behind the final four Potter movies, the author herself will be writing the script for the movies.
The Harry Potter film franchise remains the most successful in film history with $7.7 billion in global box office earnings.
Rowling’s series of books has sold more than 450 million copies and the brand has an estimated worth of $15 billion.
Giving the fans a clue before the official, announcement, last week the author tweeted out an anagram, “Newt Scamander only meant to stay in New York for a few hours,” which she said is the first sentence of a synopsis of Newt’s story.
Rowling’s Harry Potter books – which were published from 1997 to 2007 and tell the story of the young wizard and his friends at the Hogwarts school of magic.
Hollywood
Paramount Skydance to fuse HBO Max and Paramount+ in $110 billion megadeal
Ellison vows reinvention, not retrenchment, as combined group eyes 200m subscribers and $69 billion revenue
LOS ANGELES: Streaming’s latest land grab is colossal. Paramount Skydance Corp. will combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform after signing a $110 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc..
The transaction, formally inked on 27 February, is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. Paramount agreed to pay $31 per share in cash, fending off rival suitors including Netflix Inc..
On a conference call, chief executive officer David Ellison confirmed the streaming tie-up. HBO Max, with 131m subscribers, and Paramount+, with 79m, would be merged into one platform. Yet HBO, he stressed, would endure as a brand even after integration.
“Across the two platforms, there are over 200 million D2C subscribers today in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide, positioning us to compete effectively with the leading streaming services in today’s marketplace,” Ellison said.
The pitch is scale with swagger. The combined entity expects to generate $69 billion in pro-forma revenue in 2026, with estimated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $18 billion, according to chief financial officer Dennis Cinelli. Net debt is projected at $79 billion.
Ellison was emphatic that the strategy is expansionary. The group is targeting at least 30 theatrical releases annually across its studios and does not plan to cut production. “This is not about consolidation, it’s about reinventing the business,” he said.
Sport will be central to that reinvention. Ellison highlighted rights to the National Football League, Ultimate Fighting Championship, March Madness, the PGA Tour and the Olympics in Europe. A previously signed $7.7 billion UFC deal offers flexibility to air events on Warner Bros.’ TNT network, he added.
The future of certain legacy investments remains murky. Warner Bros. Discovery holds less than 10 per cent of AEW, whose television rights deal for TBS, TNT and HBO Max runs through 2027, with an option to extend to 2028. It is unclear whether that stake would be divested or retained post-merger.
Paramount said it has no plans to spin off its cable networks. A shareholder vote is expected in the spring, chief operating officer Andy Gordon said.
Funding the takeover is as muscular as the ambition. Paramount has secured $47 billion in equity backed by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners, alongside $54 billion in borrowing from Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo Global Management Inc..
Investors were cautious. Paramount shares slipped 1.9 per cent to $13.26 in morning trading in New York.
If regulators sign off, the deal will redraw the streaming map — welding together premium drama, blockbuster film, live sport and global distribution under one roof. In the battle for eyeballs, Paramount Skydance is betting that bigger is not just better, but unbeatable.
