English Entertainment
Maradona dons TV anchor’s jersey
MUMBAI: Former Argentine soccer player Diego Maradona is dribbling with a totally new career now. Maradona, one of the most happening sports personalities of the century, has signed on for a season of 13 shows with the Argentine Channel 13.
The show, La Noche del 10 (The Night of the 10), is named after Maradona’s international squad number. The chat show has Maradona in talks with various international celebrities. The show was kicked off with a session with soccer legend Pele.
The discussion touched a variety of subjects including fame and drugs. Maradona offered Pele his sympathy over the recent arrest of his son on drugs charges, to which Pele replied: “You are an example for him because you are a conqueror.”
They concluded the show by presenting each other’s children autographed soccer shirts and playing a game of headers.
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.
