English Entertainment
Star signs new exclusive output deal with China Star
MUMBAI: The Star Group has secured a new exclusive multi-year, multi-territory pay television output deal with Hong Kong’s China Star Entertainment Group for its Star Chinese Movies channel.
Star COO Steve Askew and China Star chairman Charles Heung signed the multi-million dollar agreement, which expands the existing output deal between the two companies. The new deal gives Star Chinese Movies exclusive pay television broadcast, video-on-demand and pay-per-view rights to Mandarin and Cantonese films produced by China Star in the next five years across Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, the Philippines and Singapore.
“Our firm alliance with China Star is one of the reasons Star Chinese Movies has held such a dominant position in the Chinese blockbuster market. Today’s announcement, along with our recent partnership with now Broadband TV, showcases our commitment to providing our viewers with the best television has to offer,” said Askew.
“Our commitment to producing high-quality movies and ensuring maximum exposure for our productions have found a home in this agreement with Star. Star Chinese Movies has been an effective platform to extend our audience beyond the silver screen, and we’re delighted to be working hand-in-hand with Star again,” said Heung.
Reinforced by existing output agreements with Hong Kong’s leading studios including Emperor Motion Pictures, JCE Movies, Universe and Focus Films, and now China Star, Star Chinese Movies has secured more rights to current and upcoming Chinese titles than any other movie channel in the world.
The agreement signing was attended by international superstar Jet Li, whose kung-fu skills will be on display in Star Chinese Movies’ September Spotlight in a special movie package of his digitally re-mastered classics. Also present were award winners Cecilia Cheung and Tony Leung Ka-Fai, as well as Lau Ching-Wan, Jordan Chan, Cherrie In, Raymond Wong, Andy On and Elaine Jin.
Some of the China Star films currently in pre-production include — A new Johnnie To project, My Girl Is A Kung Fu Master, Shopaholics, The Perfect Deception, Liao Zhai, Karmic Mahjong, The Come Back and The Hanky-Panky Cop.
Star Chinese Movies is currently available in Hong Kong on now Broadband TV, in Singapore on StarHub Digital Cable, as well as in Taiwan and the Philippines. Current and upcoming China Star movies to exclusively premiere on the channel include Election, Kung Fu Mahjong, The White Dragon and Himalaya Singh.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
