English Entertainment
Star Movies to come back on Mumbai’s airwaves from Monday
MUMBAI: This should spell good news for English film buffs. After having been off air for nearly five months, Star Movies will be back on air in Mumbai from Monday, 5 February.
The channel has submitted an application before the Mumbai High Court stating that it will only air films with a U or a U/A certificate. It might be recalled that archrival HBO had also been off air for some time. However it came back on air in November after submitting an application.
Star Entertainment India executive VP Ajay Vidyasagar stated, “We are happy that Star Movies is back on air in Mumbai. All the titles that will be showcased, have been cleared as per the rules of the High Court. We look forward to entertaining our viewers in the New Year with exciting properties and titles and sustain the excitement, further strengthening our position in the English movie entertainment category.”
Star Movies’ big event for this month is the 79th edition of the Oscar Awards which will air on 26 February 2007. This year there should be more interest than normal as Deepa Mehta’s Water is competing in the foreign film category.
Before that on 18 February 2006 at 8 30 pm host Terence Yin presents the preview show Opening Night. It will have scenes from Dreamgirls which got eight oscar nominatiobns but surprisingly did not get a best picture nomination.
It is a story of loyalty, fame and betrayal that tracks the struggle of a music group of African Americans carrying their sound into mainstream America. The Broadway phenomenon has been made into a film with Oscar nominees Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson and Oscar winner Jamie Foxx.
In addition to this, the channel will be premiering some big blockbusters like The Myth, Hotel Rwanda and Proof.
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.
