English Entertainment
Star World Premiere HD to bring back S2 of Wayward Pines
MUMBAI: Star World Premiere HD is bringing back the the second season of Wayward Pines from May 27 onwards, 10 pm every Friday
Wayward Pines is an adaptation of the Wayward Pines novels by eminent sci-fi and mystery author Blake Crouch. The show in its first season managed to serenade sci-fi fans with impeccable direction by M Night Shyamalan and a stellar star cast that included Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Matt Dillon who starred in wildly successful ventures like There’s Something About Mary (1998), Crash (2004), Factotum (2005), You, Me and Dupree (2006), Nothing but the Truth (2008).
The second season haswith stars like two time Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond), Jason Patric (Speed,My Sister’s Keeper) and BAFTA nominated Nimrat Kaur ( Airlift, Lunch Box) joining the ranks. The upcoming season is set to be a glitzy affair.
Wayward Pines season one traced the adventures of Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon), a U.S. Secret Service agent, who was investigating the mystery of the disappearance of his two colleagues. As his search leads him to the quaint little town of Wayward Pines, he awakens from a car accident only to find out that one of his colleagues is dead, the other, his former beau Kate Hewson (Carla Gugino) is living a rustic life in the town and all is not as it seems in the mysterious town. The town has sinister secrets and there seems to be something nefarious brewing just under the surface.
While the first season ended at crossroads, with a civil war at the horizon where do the new characters fit in? It is well-known that the town of Wayward Pines exists in a post-apocalyptic future 2000 years from now, it is populated by folks who have been kept in suspended animation all that time and thawed out as required. So when the brilliant but eccentric doctor Theo Yedlin (Jason Patrick) wakes up groggily thinking it was only the previous night that his marriage with wife Rebecca (Nimrat Kaur) was falling apart at a holiday resort in Hawaii, he is quick to realize that something is rotten in Wayward Pines. As Yedlin replaces the town’s recently deceased physician, he begins navigating his baffling new surroundings.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Yedlin (Nimrat Kaur), Theo’s wife and a former architect has already begun her work as the town’s beautician in the three years she’s been awake before her husband’s emergence.
Speaking of his role, Jason Patric said, “I did not watch the previous season because one of the things about my character, Theo Yedlin, who is a surgeon, is that he has been dropped right in the middle of it all so his reactions need to be as pure as possible.I don’t have any definitive ideas about who he is or where he’s going, but I think that was one of the interesting things about choosing to do this project.”
Nimrat Kaur also spoke about her role on the show, “I play the role of Rebecca, an architect who has designed the town of Wayward Pines. I am not one of the characters who wakes up unaware of what the place is like. Rebecca is someone who has a very complicated and intriguing journey on the show; she wakes up in Wayward Pines and copes up with her life there and struggles with her relationship with her husband while trying to find the perfect balance between everything.”
With Theo, Rebecca and a historian (DjimonHounsou) having just come out of the slumber and entered the fold, how do their characters fit in and where does their loyalty lie? Will their entry have a domino effect on the events unfurling in the show?
The series has been nominated for the prestigious Saturn Awards in numerous categories and holds a rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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.
