English Entertainment
Star India seals ‘script deal’ with Eccho Rights
MUMBAI: An attempt is being made to push three fiction drama shows from the Star India stable to global content creators. Eccho Rights, a global rights management company with offices in Stockholm, Istanbul, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Manila, has entered into an agreement with Star India, taking on an initial representation for three scripts – Tangled Sisters (Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behena – 515 x 30 min), Vera (Ek Veer Ki Ardaas…Veera – 282 x 30 min), and Unexpected Love (Diya Aur Baati Hum – 1118 x 30 min).
Eccho Rights will now represent the script rights worldwide exclusively outside of India.
“It is with great excitement that we are starting this cooperation with Star India. The globalization of drama is developing at a very interesting speed and one focus of Eccho Rights is to expand our partnership with leading producers to manage their script assets in new markets,” says Nixon Yau Lim, head of Asia Pacific at Eccho Rights.
The three titles represent some of the most successful Indian drama series ever.
Stockholm headquartered Eccho Rights has in the last two years taken no less than 12 scripts into local versions including three versions of the Turkish series The End into Europe as well as Nurses from Finland into Sweden and The Clinic from Belgium into Spain. Just last month, it sold the remake rights of Ukraine’s top rated show – a political comedy on Kvartal 93 – titled Servant of the People to Fox Studios in the US. The same month saw it conclude a major deal for 450 hours of top notch Turkish dramas with Netflix. Among these figure Ezel, Karadayi, Kurt Seyit & Sura, The End, Can’t Run From Love, Kacak, Gonul, Mahmut & Meryem , Black Heart, and Winter Sun. In fact, it has been one of the prime drivers of the rapid uptake that Turkish shows have got worldwide.
Indian TV networks led by Zee TV, Star India, and Viacom18 and smaller players such as Grey Matter Entertainment and GoQuest have been slowly but steadily making efforts to make inroads into the format licensing business.
Eccho Rights works with independent producers to empower creativity worldwide. The distributor believes that producers deserve a better distribution service. Its experience of selling finished series, scripted and entertainment formats, plus its hands-on approach and global reach, makes it an ideal partner for Star India. Eccho ensures creators retain their rights, protect their brand and maintain quality whilst optimising the value of their products, it is stated on the Eccho company web site.
A media observer agrees that Star India’s alliance with Eccho Rights is a step in the right direction. “With the kind of reach and track record Eccho has one can expect a few deals to be struck,” says she.
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.
