English Entertainment
Celebrities boogie on ABC
MUMBAI: An NFL legend, a Hollywood star, a rap singer and an Oscar winning actress are among the performers who will strut their stuff on the second season of US broadcaster ABC’s dance show Dancing with the Stars.
The show kicks of in January 2006 and is the American version of BBC’s show Strictly Come Dancing.
Hosted by Tom Bergeron, the new season boasts an expanded lineup with even more celebrities than before. Contestants are preparing to waltz, fox trot and cha cha cha their way into living rooms across America.
Contestants include Tia Carerre who starred in the TV show Relic Hunter which aired in india on AXN. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) diva Stacy Kiebler will be partnered with professional dancer Tony Dovolani.
The pairs will perform choreographed dance routines which will be judged by a panel of dance experts: Former dancers Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and dancer/choreographer Carrie Ann Inaba. The viewing public also gets to weigh in, by phoning in or voting online for their favourite performers.
The scores are combined and the outcome will be announced during a results show which will be televised the following evening. One couple will be eliminated each week. ABC says that the previous season averaged 16.8 million viewers weekly. Costumes, popular music performed by a 15-piece orchestra and performances offered doses of glitz, glamour and fun.
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.
