English Entertainment
Keshet bags Croatia crime drama ‘The Paper’s distribution rights
MUMBAI: Keshet International (KI) has bagged the global distribution rights to the new eagerly-anticipated Croatian crime drama series, The Paper. Produced by Drugi Plan and yet to air on HTV1, The Paper is a dark cocktail of political corruption, power struggles, crime and betrayal.
The story is about Mario Kardum, an influential and politically-conservative building contractor from a powerful family who buys a left-liberalist newspaper in deep financial trouble. He has two underlying, questionable motives. Firstly, he wants to keep the investigation of someone close to him as the perpetrator of a high-profile hit-and-run case out of the news. Secondly, he wants to coerce the paper into writing favourably about the presidential candidate he is backing.
The Paper is a blistering, fast-paced account of the obstacles and dilemmas faced by today’s press. Has the profession of journalism, once so important, become nothing more than an instrument to achieve other, even greater interests? It will be available as a finished subtitled series and drama format to buyers at MIPCOM 2016.
Keshet International acquisition head Sebastian Burkhardt said, “We came across The Paper at NEM and were extremely impressed by the quality of the production. Everything from the storytelling, to the direction and the cast leads it to be very timely and universal. With current opportunities for non-English speaking series, and our experience with them, we are confident that The Paper will find its audience outside of Croatia.”
The Paper creator and producer Nebojsa Taraba said, “Through this collaboration with Keshet International, we truly feel as though we have found a common artistic tongue and that our project has — in many ways — come home. The way in which Keshet produces and perceives television is precisely what we’ve tried to emulate and apply in our work for years.”
Created by Ivica Djikic, Nebojsa Taraba and Miodrag Sila and directed by Cannes Film Festival jury prize-winner Dalibor Matanic (Un Certain Regard, The High Sun), The Paper is set in the busy newsroom of a daily newspaper. A highly-acclaimed, provocative drama, it presents an ensemble cast navigating the blurred lines between morality and integrity.
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.
