English Entertainment
‘Desperate Houeswives’ effect pushes Golden Globes to Monday night
MUMBAI: The popularity of US broadcaster ABC’s show Desperate Housewives has compelled to NBC to reschedule the film and television awards show The Golden Globe Awards to Monday night. The show will air on 16 January 2006 from the Beverly Hilton.
In India the show will air live on Star World early in the morning on Tuesday 17 January 2006. Media reports indicate that the move was prompted by a request from NBC to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) which organises the awards. The irony is that while the Globes showered awards on Desperate Housewives in January viewers preferred to watch the antics of Teri Hatcher and the gang rather than see them being rewarded. The move cost the Golden Globe Awards 7.5 million viewers.
The HFPA initially had expressed some concern over the availability of top Hollywood stars on a Monday night but research put their fears to rest.
Nominations for the Globes will be announced on 13 December. Meanwhile the most prestigious movie awards show will take place on 5 March 2006 – one week later than this year’s ceremony. The event was moved back in order to avoid going head-to-head against the closing ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
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.
