English Entertainment
ABC, Hallmark to preach ‘The Ten Commandments’
MUMBAI: It is one of the most popular stories from the Bible. ABC and Hallmark Entertainment in the US have announced that production on The Ten Commandments a four-hour miniseries will begin on 23 May.
The two-part epic, the product of months of painstaking biblical and historical research to present the story of Exodus and offer an authentic portrayal of 13th century B.C. Egypt, will be shot over a ten-week period on location in Ouarzazate, Morocco. The Ten Commandments will air during the 2005-06 season on ABC.
Dougray Scott Ever After plays the prophet Moses who leads the Jews out of the land of Egypt. Veteran actor Omar Sharif Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia plays Jethro.
Moses rises in power to defend a people, to free them and to live in history like no other. A time of danger approaches for the entire Kingdom — danger from a child who will become a Prince of Egypt. With a soothsayer’s dire prophecy, the Pharaoh orders the slaughter of all newborn males. But one child, Moses, born of Hebrew slave Amram and his wife, Jochebed, is relinquished to the care of others to ensure his safety.
Raised by Princess Bithia in a royal Egyptian household and with no memory of his true family, Moses has risen to the stature of Prince. Upon discovery of his heritage, and inspired by a fiery message from God, he implores his stepbrother, Menerith, a high official in Ramses’ army, to join him in a fight to reclaim his destiny as leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.
But when Ramses rejects his demands for his personal quest, Moses issues the curse of a coming plague. There are ten plagues in all that include the swarm of locusts to a river transformed into a rushing stream of human blood. Moses has taken the first step toward accomplishing his mission.
The series will chart the dramatic story of the Hebrew leader — from his narrow escape from death as a child to his role as an emancipator of slaves to the parting of the Red Sea.
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.
