English Entertainment
Movies Now kept stakeholders engaged between Goafest sessions, says SVP Vivek Srivastava
GOA: Times Network was the title sponsor of the much awaited Goafest 2017. The fest that celebrates the outstanding work of the advertising & media industry saw the coming together of creative geniuses on one platform. While innovation and creativity was being celebrated, Times Network was at its creative best when it came to engaging with its viewers through activations for two of their popular movie channels, Movies Now and Movies Now2.
Commenting on the occasion, Times Network SVP and head of English entertainment cluster & Zoom Vivek Srivastava said, “The activities at Goafest had a single word purpose – engagement. We ensured that our stakeholders were engaged delightfully in between the enlightening sessions. The moment one entered the fest, one could experience Movies Now’s ‘Home To Superheroes’. Now that we have the Marvel and the DC franchises with us, we wanted to give the larger than life experience. The superhero zone does exactly that. Movies Now 2 is an upcoming brand, it has been extremely gratifying for us to receive such a good response to this new age, upscale and edgy brand.”
Movies Now was ‘Home To Superheroes’ as the avengers squad was ready to take on the world. Sculptures of superheroes like Captain America, Hulk, Thor and Iron Man, fans seemed excited to click pictures with their favourite superheroes.
The channel also had exciting competitions. The famous ‘Thor Hammer’ was made for people to try and lift. The idea was to say that only Thor can life it. The participant who manages to lift was given goodies and Movies Now merchandise. The other exciting competition that was organized was to solve a jigsaw puzzle while competing to complete the poster of a superhero faster than the other participant. The winners were given Movies Now merchandise.
Movies Now 2 created a war-zone with zorb fighting. Participants were given a chance to compete individually or in groups to bring out the wild child in them and defeat one another. Because that’s what Movies Now 2 is all about! The winners were awarded with exciting Movies Now 2 merchandise.
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.
