English Entertainment
CBS unveils identities of castaways for ‘Survivor: Thailand’
MUMBAI: US television network CBS has unveiled the identities of the 16 castaways participating in Survivor: Thailand. The series premiere’s 19 September.
The castaways include 60-year-old land broker Jill Billingsley, real estate agent Erin Colins and professional firefighter Stephanie Dill.
The show, hosted by Jeff Probst, will strand 16 Americans on Koh Tarutao, a remote island off the southern coast of Thailand, during the region’s dangerous monsoon season. Executive producer Mark Burnett is promising that the show will include brand new challenges, new rules and new twists like nothing ever seen in previous installments. As the castaways are faced with harsh weather and the uncertainty of what’s coming next, each person must attempt to outwit, outplay and outlast the others in order to become the ultimate survivor.
In the US last season both Survivor: Africa and Survivor: Marquesas finished in the top 5 in viewers and placed fifth and sixth in adults 18-49. The latter averaged 20.8 million viewers (#4) while the former averaged 20.7 million viewers (#5). In adults 18-49 the former ranked #5 for the season with an 8.4 rating, followed by the latter at #6 with an 8.3 rating.
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.
