English Entertainment
Fox to beam ‘American Idol’ finale in May
MUMBAI: Fox has announced that the fourth season of its music based reality show American Idol climaxes in May at the Kodak Theatre. This is the venue where the Oscar Awards were held.
Last year, nearly 30 million Americans tuned in to watch Fantasia Barrino claim the crown. In India, the show airs on Star World.
Fox states that the current season has surpassed last year’s ratings of the show. It claims that American Idol ranks as the No. 1-rated programme of the season (out of 167 regular series on the six networks) among adults 18-49, adults 18-34, and teens.
Meanwhile, Mario Vazquez who was one of the 12 finalists picked by viewers, withdrew for undisclosed personal reasons and was replaced by Nikko Smith, son of Hall of Fame baseball player Ozzie Smith.
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.
