English Entertainment
FremantleMedia signs seven deals for ‘Man Stroke Woman’
MUMBAI: Fremantle International Distribution (FID) has agreed major deals with seven countries for the sale of series one of the sketch show Man Stroke Woman.
A talkbackTHAMES production from Ash Atalla producer of The Office, Man Stroke Woman was first shown on BBC3 last year and will be screened on BBC2 on 13 March.
The show is proving a success around the globe with deals secured with TVNZ New Zealand, RTE Ireland, TV2 Denmark, MTV OY Finland, Talpa TV Netherlands, IBC Iceland and IBA Israel.
Man Stroke Woman stars an ensemble cast of actors including Nick Frost, Nick Burns, Daisy Haggard and Amanda Abbington. talkbackTHAMES has also picked up a commission for a second series for BBC3 and BBC2.
FID head of acquisitions and development Shane Murphy said, “The reaction to the show around the world has been phenomenal and proves yet again the strength of home grown comedy talent.”
FID will also be launching the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd, also produced by talkbackTHAMES’s Ash Atalla, at MipTV 2006.
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.
