English Entertainment
Top APRC drivers lined up for MRF India Rally
MUMBAI: Preparations for the last round of the FIA’s (motorsports’ world body) Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) 2003, the MRF India Rally, are hotting up.
For the rally, 12 containers have been delivered at the Bangkok ports. The containers, expected to reach Mumbai around 25 November, consist of 11 rally cars and other service cars, service equipment and spares. As reported earlier by indiantelevision.com, the event will kick off in Mumbai on 5 December. The rally will take place in Pune till 7 December. ESPN-Star Sports (ESS) will air a half-hour wrap-up of the event everyday.
The Mumbai/Pune round will be the fifth and the final round of the APRC. The earlier rounds were held at Canberra (Australia), Rotorua (New Zealand), Hokkaido (Japan) and Rayong (Thailand).
Among the FIA registered drivers who have confirmed participation in the MRF India Rally are last year’s WRC (production cars) champion Karamjit Singh (Malaysia); last year’s overall APRC 2002 Champion Geoff Argyle; twice New Zealand Rally Champion (1998/1999) Nico Caldarola, and 2001 European Rally Champion and German Rally Champion in 1996,1998 and 1999 Andrew Hawkeswood.
A few more drivers from Indonesia and Malaysia are expected to take part in the MRF India Rally 2003.
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.
