English Entertainment
HBO US’ new miniseries sees an empire fall
MUMBAI: Fresh from the success that its mini series Angels in America enjoyed in the US last year HBO has announced that its new mini series Empire Falls will air in the US in May.
Empire Falls is based on Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller and as is generally the case stars a who is who of Hollywood. The cast includes Ed Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Helen Hunt, Oscar winning veteran Paul Newman, Robin Wright Penn, Aidan Quinn and Joanne Woodward.
The two part miniseries was shot in 2003 in Waterville, Skowhegan and other Maine towns.
At its center is Miles Roby, who runs the Empire Grill, a restaurant that becomes the crossroads for a captivating mix of characters whose lives and pasts are inextricably intertwined. Russo said that he is very pleased with how it came out . “The performances are stunning. It is a beautiful film and central Maine comes off looking really good. I think that the people of Maine will be really pleased with the way their lives and their towns come across.”
The show airs on 28 and 29 May.
In the addition HBO On Demand will offer a unique viewing option apart from any of the versions on the traditional linear channels. The eight “chapters” of the miniseries will be available separately. HBO2 will debut Parts 1 and 2 back-to-back on 30 May. Throughout June, both HBO and HBO2 will present the two parts back-to-back as well as on consecutive days.
HBO executive VP programme planning David Baldwin says, “Taken as a whole, this rollout of Empire Falls represents the latest example of how HBO is recreating the way television is made available to its viewers. This plan gives HBO subscribers almost unlimited choice and access to the event, while still allowing for the traditional excitement of a mini-series premiere over the holiday weekend.”
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.
