Hollywood
Fast 7 adds more muscle to its wheels with Djimon Hounsou
UMBAI: Djimon Hounsou is adding his muscle to Universal’s Fast & Furious 7, the studio has announced. He’ll join franchise veterans Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson and Tyrese, along with Kurt Russell and new baddie Jason Statham. The sequel helmed by James Wan is due to hit theaters 11 July. Moritz and Diesel return as producers.
No plot details have been unveiled yet, except that the film will return to Los Angeles after the previous six films were set in other locations. Co-president of production Jeff Kirschenbaum and creative executive Jay Polidoro will oversee the project. This May’s Fast & Furious 6 was the highest-grossing pic in the series, with $788 million worldwide.
Hounsou can be seen next in Fox Searchlight’s Baggage Claim and follows that up with a busy 2014 that includes Legendary’s Seventh Son, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Hollywood
US theatre group opposes Paramount, Warner Bros. merger, calls it ‘harmful’
Exhibitors warn mega deal could shrink film output and weaken cinema ecosystem
LAS VEGAS: Cinema United has come out strongly against the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, warning it could concentrate too much power in the hands of a single player and disrupt the global film ecosystem.
Speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, the group’s chief executive Michael O’Leary did not mince words as he addressed thousands of theatre owners. The deal, reportedly valued at $110 billion, was agreed in March after Netflix exited the bidding process.
“We believe this transaction will be harmful to exhibition, consumers and the entire entertainment ecosystem,” O’Leary said, cautioning that greater consolidation would allow fewer distributors to dictate terms around release windows, scheduling and access to film libraries. Theatre owners argue that such scale could reduce competition and ultimately mean fewer films making it to cinemas.
Pushing back, a spokesperson for Paramount Skydance said the merged entity plans to release 30 films annually in theatres, while continuing to operate both studios separately. The company added that the deal would expand opportunities for creators and strengthen competition by backing more projects globally.
However, exhibitors remain unconvinced. Drawing parallels with The Walt Disney Company’s 2019 acquisition of Fox, O’Leary noted a drop in wide theatrical releases post-merger, reinforcing concerns that consolidation often leads to fewer films.
“Unfortunately, history shows us that consolidation results in fewer films being produced for movie theaters,” O’Leary said.
Beyond output, Cinema United also flagged concerns around theatrical windows, warning that a combined Paramount-Warner entity could exert greater control over how long films remain exclusively in cinemas before shifting to other platforms.
With the debate set to intensify, the clash highlights a familiar tension in Hollywood: scale versus diversity. For theatre owners, the stakes are clear, as they push to ensure that bigger does not mean fewer stories on the big screen.
