Hollywood
India’s The Good Road out of the Oscar race
MUMBAI: Gyan Correa’s much publicised The Good Road is out of the race for the Foreign Language Oscars. Nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 86th Academy Awards. Seventy-six films had originally been considered in the category.
Even earlier, The Good Road, Correa’s directorial debut that intertwines three stories in the hostile and remote Kutch in Gujarat, had a bumpy ride – when it invited the wrath of The Lunch Box team, which felt that Correa’s work stood little chance at the Oscars.
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The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are: Belgium, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Felix van Groeningen, director; Bosnia and Herzegovina, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, Danis Tanovic, director; Cambodia, The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh, director; Denmark, The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg, director; Germany, Two Lives, Georg Maas, director; Hong Kong, The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-wai, director; Hungary, The Notebook, Janos Szasz, director; Italy, The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, director; Palestine, Omar, Hany Abu-Assad, director.
Foreign Language Film nominations for 2013 are being determined in two phases. The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 16. The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist. The shortlist will be winnowed down to the five nominees by specially invited committees in New York and Los Angeles. They will spend 10 January to 12 January viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.
The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on16 January, 2014, Thursday in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Hollywood
Paramount Skydance secures financing for Warner Bros Discovery deal
Debt syndication and new loans push $111 billion merger closer to close
WASHINGTON: Paramount Skydance has taken a major step towards its planned acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, securing fresh financing and completing the syndication of its bridge loan facility.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company confirmed that the bridge facility has now been distributed among a group of 18 banks, reducing total commitments to $49 billion from an earlier $54 billion. The move spreads risk across lenders and signals growing confidence in one of the year’s largest media deals.
Alongside this, the company has finalised permanent financing arrangements, including $5 billion in senior term loans and a $5 billion revolving credit facility. A previously planned $3.5 billion credit line has been dropped as part of the restructuring.
The loans are secured against key assets, including Paramount Global, Skydance Media and Warner Bros post-merger, underlining the scale and complexity of the transaction.
The financing push follows a competitive bidding process earlier this year, which saw interest from players such as Netflix before Paramount Skydance emerged as the frontrunner. The deal, valued at $111 billion, is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approvals.
Adding to the momentum, the company has also secured significant equity backing, including investments from Middle Eastern funds, with support from billionaire Larry Ellison, who has guaranteed the equity portion of the transaction.
Commenting on the development, Paramount Skydance chief strategy officer Andy Gordon said, “Our successful debt syndication and new debt facilities represent another important milestone towards the completion of our acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery.”
Once completed, the combined entity is expected to carry net debt of just under $80 billion, reflecting the sheer scale of the merger.
As Hollywood continues to consolidate in the streaming era, this deal could reshape the competitive landscape, with Paramount Skydance betting big on scale, content and financial muscle to take on global rivals.
