English Entertainment
FOX renews four shows, cancels one
MUMBAI: Early this year, at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, officials at FOX Broadcasting announced that the network had decided to pass the traditional pilot season henceforth. At the tour, FOX had announced that it would order series all year long, which is clearly evident from the series order of 24: Live Another Day, M. Night Shyamalan’s Wayward Pines and the Batman-prequel Gotham, all ordered to series before the traditional pilot season schedule.
Usually during the pilot seasons, the fate of the older programmes is announced. Last April, the ground-breaking teen phenomenon Glee was renewed for two seasons. However, later creator Ryan Murphy said that the sixth season would be its last. In October, Sleepy Hollow became the first new series to be renewed for a second season during its 13 episode first season run. In January this year, FOX renewed its veteran forensic procedural Bones for a tenth season.
Last week, FOX announced renewals for four of its series – the Critics Choice Television Award winning New Girl and The Mindy Project, along with the Golden Globe Award winning comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the Kevin Bacon-starrer The Following. Along with renewals come cancellations too, in order to balance the weekly schedule. As announced on Monday, 10 March, the first series to be passed on is the quirky comedy Raising Hope. The acclaimed comedy will bow out with an hour-long farewell with the season four finale now airing as the series finale next month.
In India, The Mindy Project and Brooklyn Nine-Nine airs on Comedy Central, while Glee, Bones and New Girl air on STAR World. Sleepy Hollow will be finishing its first season run on STAR World Premiere and The Following completed its first season run on Zee Cafe.
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.
