English Entertainment
HBO tries its hand at the western series ‘Deadwood’
MUMBAI: A hell of a place to make your fortune! Over the past couple of years English movie channels Star Movies and HBO have broadened their offerings through mini series. Earlier Star Movies had announced that it would air the adventure series Lost in India from September.
Now HBO has announced it will commence airing the period western drama Deadwood from 1 August every Monday after the 9 pm movie.
The year is 1876 and the town of Deadwood in the state of South Dakota in the weeks following the death of General George Armstrong Custer in the famous battle of the Little Bighorn is a lawless sinkhole of crime and corruption. Deadwood is an illegal settlement, a violent and uncivilized outpost that attracts a colorful array of characters looking to get rich — from outlaws and entrepreneurs to ex-soldiers and racketeers, Chinese labourers, prostitutes, city dudes and gunfighters.
Into this uncivilised outpost ride a disillusioned and bitter ex-lawman, Wild Bill Hickok, and Seth Bullock, a man hoping to find a new start for himself. Both men find themselves quickly on opposite sides of the legal and moral fence from Al Swearengen, saloon owner, hotel operator, and incipient boss of Deadwood.
The lives of these three intertwine with many others, the high-minded and the low-lifes who populate Deadwood. The show stars Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane and Molly Parker. Deadwood’s lovable bad guy is Machiavellian saloonkeeper McShane, who has a vested interest in keeping his unincorporated South Dakota camp lawless. He batters his prostitutes, harangues his lackeys, and arranges murders to protect his gold-mining swindles. He’s an incorrigible wheeler-dealer, contracting services for “$10 or a ball of dope,” and keeping his customers from fleeing the saloon to join a lynch mob by promising “pussy half-off, next 15 minutes.”
Olyphant plays the town’s conscience, a department-store proprietor Timothy Olyphant. Powers Boothe meanwhile plays another negative character. He opens a classier saloon/casino/brothel across the street, but quickly reveals himself to be just as ruthlessly amoral as McShane. The show’s creator David `and his crew study how civilisations get built out of chaos, through subtle power plays and calculated bloodletting in a place “in the middle of nowhere, where nobody’s looking.”
The show is said to have unflinching realism, adult themes and inventive storylines. While it is good to see a Western back on screen after quite a while how well it attracts Indian viewers will remain to be seen.
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.
