Hollywood
‘Serena’ finally gets a release date
MUMBAI: Two years after finishing pre-production, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence starrer Serena is finally gearing up for an early 2015 release.
According to media reports, Magnolia Pictures took US distribution rights to the film this week, more than two years after production wrapped up in the Czech Republic. The movie was produced by their sister company 2929 Entertainment.
The movie was filmed back in 2012 before either of Lawrence and Cooper’s other collaborations, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, were released.
Serena is a depression-era-set drama about newlyweds running a timber business. The pair will play married couple Serena and George Pemberton, who run a powerful timber empire in the North Carolina Mountains in the 1920s.
The movie’s narrative revolves around the emotional turmoil resulting after Lawrence’s titular character discovers she is unable to bear children and takes her anger out on her husband’s illegitimate son.
In US, the movie will first hit VOD on 26 February 2015 which will be followed by a theatrical release on 27 March 2015. But overseas, Serena will premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 13 October2014. The movie will then be released on 24 October 2014 in UK and will begin rolling out internationally afterwards.
Hollywood
US theatre group opposes Paramount, Warner Bros. merger, calls it ‘harmful’
Exhibitors warn mega deal could shrink film output and weaken cinema ecosystem
LAS VEGAS: Cinema United has come out strongly against the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, warning it could concentrate too much power in the hands of a single player and disrupt the global film ecosystem.
Speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, the group’s chief executive Michael O’Leary did not mince words as he addressed thousands of theatre owners. The deal, reportedly valued at $110 billion, was agreed in March after Netflix exited the bidding process.
“We believe this transaction will be harmful to exhibition, consumers and the entire entertainment ecosystem,” O’Leary said, cautioning that greater consolidation would allow fewer distributors to dictate terms around release windows, scheduling and access to film libraries. Theatre owners argue that such scale could reduce competition and ultimately mean fewer films making it to cinemas.
Pushing back, a spokesperson for Paramount Skydance said the merged entity plans to release 30 films annually in theatres, while continuing to operate both studios separately. The company added that the deal would expand opportunities for creators and strengthen competition by backing more projects globally.
However, exhibitors remain unconvinced. Drawing parallels with The Walt Disney Company’s 2019 acquisition of Fox, O’Leary noted a drop in wide theatrical releases post-merger, reinforcing concerns that consolidation often leads to fewer films.
“Unfortunately, history shows us that consolidation results in fewer films being produced for movie theaters,” O’Leary said.
Beyond output, Cinema United also flagged concerns around theatrical windows, warning that a combined Paramount-Warner entity could exert greater control over how long films remain exclusively in cinemas before shifting to other platforms.
With the debate set to intensify, the clash highlights a familiar tension in Hollywood: scale versus diversity. For theatre owners, the stakes are clear, as they push to ensure that bigger does not mean fewer stories on the big screen.
