English Entertainment
Star Movies presents the Fabulous Fools
Mumbai, March 28, 2006… Laughter is the best medicine and Star Movies surely recommends it! This April Fools Day, it dedicates its entire line-up featuring fabulous stars and movies with non-stop laugh riots! Watch back-to-back power packed performances from some of Hollywood’s leading comedians including Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans and the undisputed winner – Rowan Atkinson on Saturday, April 1st only on Star Movies.
Sat, Apr 1 @ 11:30 a.m.
BEAN
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Peter McNicol, Burt Reynolds, John Mills, Pamela Reed
Bean works as a caretaker at Britain’s formidable Royal National Gallery, and his bosses want to fire him because he sleeps at work all the time, but can’t because the chairman of the gallery’s board defends him. They send him to USA, to the small Los Angeles art gallery instead, where he’ll have to officiate at the opening of the greatest US picture ever (called “Whistler’s Mother”).
Sat, Apr 1 @ 1:25 p.m.
DON’T BE A MENACE TO SOUTH CENTRAL WHILE DRINKING YOUR JUICE IN THE HOOD
Starring: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Tracy Cherelle Jones
“Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking your Juice in the Hood” is a parody of a lot of Afro-American movies, for instance “Boyz N the Hood”, “South Central”, “Menace II Society”, “Higher Learning” and “Juice”. We follow Ashtray as he returns to the place he grew up in and meet his father and his basket-case friends. A lot of crazy stuff happens, for example, Ashtray is older than his father and his best friend Loc Dog’s grandmother is a trigger-happy old lady who blames her eccentric-looking kid for not being tough enough.
Sat, Apr 1 @ 3:05 p.m.
NUTTY PROFESSOR 2: THE KLUMPS
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Janet Jackson, Larry Miller
Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) is engaged to his pretty girlfriend Denise Gaines (Janet Jackson), also a professor. But Buddy Love, his other him from the first movie, tries to stay in his own form for eternity, and therefore he keeps appearing, a thing that makes damage to Klump. Klump tries to destroy Buddy Love forever, but while his plan has failed, and he starts to lose his knowledge and memory, he must do something to prevent the lost of the thing that made Dennis fall in love with him – his wisdom. With the help of his very impolite and rude family, the Klumps, he tries to return his memory and to vanish Buddy Love forever.
Sat, Apr 1 @ 5:15 p.m.
FLUBBER
Starring: Robin Williams, Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher McDonald, Raymond Barry
Professor Phillip Brainard, an absent minded professor, works with his assistant Weebo, trying to create a substance that’s a new source of energy and that will save Medfield College where his sweetheart Sara is the president. He has missed his wedding twice, and on the afternoon of his third wedding, Professor Brainard creates flubber, which allows objects to fly through the air. I looks like rubber, so he calls it flubber. This film is based on the 1961 Disney classic, “The Absent-Minded Professor.
Sat, Apr 1 @ 7:10 p.m.
LIAR LIAR
Starring: Jim Carrey, Jennifer Tilly, Maura Tierney, Justin Cooper
The truth shall set you free — or get you into a heap of trouble! Fletcher Reede (Carrey) is a fast-talking attorney and habitual liar. When his son Max (Justin Cooper) blows out the candles on his fifth birthday cake, he has just one wish — that his dad will stop lying for 24 hours. When Max’s wish miraculously comes true, Fletcher discovers that his biggest asset — his mouth — has suddenly become his biggest liability! Havoc ensues as Fletcher tries to keep his practice afloat and his ex-wife Audrey (Maura Tierney) from taking their son and moving to Boston.
So get set for some fun and excitement and start off the month with non-stop laughs with “Fabulous Fools”, this April Fools Day, Saturday, April 1st on STAR Movies.
About Star
STAR is a leading media and entertainment company in Asia. STAR broadcasts over 50 television services in nine languages to more than 300 million viewers across 53 Asian countries. STAR channels cover all genres including general entertainment (Star Plus, Xing Kong, Star Chinese Channel, Star One, Star Utsav, Star World, Vijay, Phoenix Chinese), sports (ESPN, Star Sports), movies (Star Chinese Movies, Star Gold, Star Movies), music (Channel [V]), and news and current affairs (Star News, Star Ananda, Phoenix InfoNews Channel). STAR controls over 20,000 hours of Indian and Chinese programming and also owns the world’s largest contemporary Chinese film library, with more than 600 titles, featuring superstars including Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Bruce Lee. In partnership with leading companies in Asia, STAR businesses extend to filmed entertainment, television production, cable systems, direct-to-home services, terrestrial TV broadcasting, wireless and digital services. STAR is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation. www.startv.com.
For further information please contact:
In Mumbai
Zeenat Khan
Asst. Vice President – Publicity
STAR (India) Ltd.
Tel No. 91-22-56305555
Shiraz Bhavnani / Aditi Chada
Vaishnavi Corporate Communications
Tel: 91-22-5656 8787
Fax: 91-22-5656 8788?
Email:sbhavnani@vccpl.com / achada@vccpl.com
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.
