English Entertainment
Leonardo DiCaprio wins Best Actor at 88th Academy Awards; complete list of winners
MUMBAI: Doesn’t it feel extremely pleasant when you get rewarded or appreciated for your work? That breathtaking moment when you don’t understand whether to weep or be gleeful. And winning an award after waiting for the past six years just makes that win even sweeter.
With almost the entire world praying for Leonardo DiCaprio to bag his first Oscar at this year’s 88th Academy Awards, the actor and his fans were not disappointed. DiCaprio finally walked off the stage with the coveted golden trophy for Best Actor for his role in The Revenant. In his speech, the actor not only thanked the director Alejandro Iñárritu, but also expressed gratitude to his parents.
Adding further, the actor said, “Making The Revenant was about man’s relationship to the natural world, climate change is real. It is happening right now. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Calling 2015 as the hottest year in history he said, “It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species.Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted.”
While Mad Max: Fury Road bagged six Oscars, The Revenant grabbed three and Spotlight took away two awards.
The complete list of winners is as follows:
Best Picture
Spotlight
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant
Best Actress
Brie Larson for Room
Best Supporting Actor
Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies
Best Supporting Actress
Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl
Best Director
The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Best Original Screenplay
Spotlight, Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Best Costume Design
Jenny Beavan for Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Production Design
Mad Max: Fury Road production design, Colin Gibson; set decoration by Lisa Thompson
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Mad Max: Fury Road, Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin
Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki for The Revenant
Best Film Editing
Mad Max: Fury Road, Margaret Sixel
Best Sound Editing
Mad Max: Fury Road, Mark Mangini and David White
Best Sound Mixing
Mad Max: Fury Road, Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo
Best Visual Effects
Ex Machina, Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett
Best Animated Short Film
Bear Story, Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
Best Animated Feature Film
Inside Out, Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera
Best Documentary, Short Subject
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Best Documentary Feature
Amy, Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees
Best Live-Action Short Film
Stutterer, Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage
Best Foreign-Language Film
Son of Saul, Hungary
Best Original Song
Writing’s on the Wall from Spectre; Music and lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith
Best Original Score
The Hateful Eight, Ennio Morricone
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
