English Entertainment
21st Century Fox buys stake in smartglasses company ODG
MUMBAI: 21st Century Fox will be acquiring a minority stake in Osterhout Design Group (ODG), an augmented and virtual reality and smartglasses designer and manufacturer.
Pending the completion of final agreements, 21st Century Fox will become the principal outside investor in ODG. In addition, the two companies plan to enter into a strategic partnership that brings together ODG’s technologies with 21st Century Fox’s content and storytelling.
ODG is further cementing its leadership in the Smartglasses arena as it moves into immersive experiences for entertainment with the introduction of its high-definition, cinema-wide field of view technology which it is demonstrating at CES 2016.
“The power of virtual and augmented reality enables us to deliver on our longstanding commitment to bring audiences exciting new creative experiences fuelled by next generation technologies,” said 20th Century Fox Film chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos. “Our agreement with ODG underscores the innovation we are bringing to market through our Fox Innovation Lab, most recently with VR experiences for The Martian and Wild. We look forward to partnering with ODG and serving as its lead outside investor as the ODG team pushes the film experience into the future with its high-definition, cinema-wide field of view technology.”
“We’re excited to have 21st Century Fox join our family and help extend our considerable leadership in AR head-worn computing. This space is ultimately heading towards widespread consumer adoption and by having 21st Century Fox onboard, we’ll be able to deliver immersive and interactive entertainment experiences that transform how users consume content,” said ODG CEO Ralph Osterhout.
ODG’s current smartglasses, the R-7, feature ultra-transparent 3D stereoscopic displays and offer innovative technologies in a small, light and sleek design. The R-7 requires no external computing and delivers a quality user experience of display clarity, on-board processing power and system accuracy.
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.
