English Entertainment
HBO to prolong ‘The Sopranos’
MUMBAI: The wiseguys won’t be sleeping with the fishes anytime soon! HBO US has decided to extend its gangster saga The Sopranos for at least eight more episodes.
HBO CEO Chris Albrecht said, “When something is as remarkable as The Sopranos our audience would like to see it continue as long as possible, so we are thrilled that David Chase felt there are more stories to be told.”
There will now be eight “bonus” episodes in addition to the 12 episodes for the sixth season. HBO though has not said anything about whether the series will make its final bow once the eight bonus episodes have finished airing. In India the show airs on Zee Cafe.
The fifth season ended in the US in June 2004 and the sixth season will not air until March 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.
