English Entertainment
Optimystix targets March ’05 for international debut
MUMBAI: Things are certainly looking up for format show specialists Optimystix. The production house which took a leap into the fiction arena early this year with Yeh Meri Life Hai, is in advanced talks with a European broadcaster to produce a show.
“We are targeting March 2005 for the launch of our first international project on a European broadcaster,” says Optimystix CEO Rajiv Vyas.
Indian entertainment media in recent times; Hindi film industry in particular; has been touted as the ‘flavour of the season’ overseas. What with select Indian films doing good business abroad and mainstream Indian artistes working on international projects, targeting the lucrative diaspora market seems like a sensible approach. But television is a different ball game altogether.
Optimystix, however, is not targeting the “safe” NRI pockets. “We are in talks with several European producers. While talks for one show are finalising, we would make the broadcaster’s name public once the deal is firmed up,” Vyas adds.
“We have come up with original content specifically for the European market,” Optimystix director Sanjiv Sharma offers.
“Indian content is coming of age. With Indian production houses having successfully adapted several international formats successfully in recent times, international broadcasters can assess our programming better,” Sharma adds.
As of now, the production house has hired an agent abroad to help it co-ordinate with producers there. But the three-man team behind Optimystix (Vipul D Shah, Sharma and Vyas) isn’t quite keen on international joint ventures for now. “While couple of talents abroad have approached us, but we are yet to take a decision on it. But we also have amazing talent in India, which is at par with any other,” Vyas asserts.
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.
