English Entertainment
Williams sisters to get real on ABC’s new TV show
MUMBAI: American tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams will give TV viewers a sneak peek into their private lives with their new reality TV show – Venus and Serena: For Real as they become the latest celebrities to star in their own reality television show.
Venus and Serena: For Real will debut on ABC Family television in the US tomorrow.
Sister Act! — Venus and Serena Williams
(Pic courtesy: www.abcfamilynet.com)
“Our summer programming lineup is reflective of today’s families and focuses on real stories, real families, real heart. We just finished 1Q with double digit increases and had our best total day deliveries in key demos for January, February and March. We look forward to maintaining this momentum through the summer,” said ABC Family president Paul Lee.
The series featuring Venus and Serena will take an in-depth and off-court look at the fascinating, successful lives of professional tennis sisters, focusing on their other passions outside of tennis and time spent with family and friends.
Venus & Serena: For Real was filmed over a period of six-weeks, before Venus won the Wimbledon championship recently.
The show will delve into questions like what it is like to lead the lifestyle of tennis pros and also deal with the glamour of being celebrities?
Comprising six episodes, the reality show will follow these two young women coming of age, as they find their place in the world outside of tennis. Viewers can see them interacting with their family and friends and also find out what they do for fun.
The series has been executive produced by Fernando Hernandez (Till Death Do Us Part: Carmen + Dave) and Robert Pura.
The 25-year-old Venus, currently ranked ninth in the world, has won five grand slam tournaments, including the Wimbledon women’s finals. Serena (23), on the other hand has won seven grand slam titles.
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.
