Cuddle up with your loved ones and bask in the warming glow of this five hour Darth Vader yule log. Perfect for holiday parties.
DreamWorks Studios, Participant Media, Reliance Entertainment and Entertainment One Form Amblin Partners
Steven Spielberg, Principal Partner, DreamWorks Studios, Jeff Skoll, Chairman, Participant Media, Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Group and Darren Throop, President and Chief Executive Officer, Entertainment One (eOne) announced today the formation of Amblin Partners, a new film, television and digital content creation company.
The new company will create content using the Amblin, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant brands and leverage their power and broad awareness to tell stories that appeal to a wide range of audiences. Participant Media will remain a separate company that continues to independently develop, produce and finance projects with socially relevant themes.
In addition, Amblin Television will become a division of Amblin Partners and continues to be run by co-presidents Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank, who maintain their longtime leadership roles. They join Producer Kristie Macosko Krieger and President of Production Holly Bario on the film side, to complete Amblin Partners’ senior management team.
David Linde, Chief Executive Officer of Participant Media, and Participant’s narrative feature team, led by Executive Vice President Jonathan King, will work closely with Amblin Partners to develop and produce specific content for the new venture in addition to exploring opportunities for co-productions and other content.
In making the announcement about Amblin Partners, Mr. Spielberg said, “We are thrilled to partner with Jeff Skoll, Participant Media, and to continue our prolific relationship. We are of like minds, as our many collaborations have illustrated, with a mutual commitment to quality, premium entertainment and global vision.”
Mr. Skoll said, “I have had the good fortune of working with Steven for many years. We share a passion for stories that can truly affect change. And this new venture will further Participant’s growth and global impact.”
DreamWorks Studios and Participant Media have collaborated on many Academy Award® nominated films such as “Lincoln” and “The Help” as well as the critically acclaimed “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” and the recently released “Bridge of Spies.”
Mr. Spielberg continued, “We are honored to continue our long-term association with our dear friend, Anil Ambani and his team at Reliance. We have had the opportunity to develop and produce wonderful films thanks to their ongoing support.”
“We are delighted to continue our now seven-years-strong relationship with our valued partner, Steven Spielberg, and to extend this alliance to the formation of Amblin Partners with Jeff Skoll. We look forward to the combination of Steven’s passion and integrity with Jeff’s unique socially conscious vision to create uplifting and quality content to entertain global audiences,” Mr. Ambani said.
Mr. Spielberg continued, “We are also grateful to Darren Throop and his team at Entertainment One for their contribution to Amblin Partners. We look forward to expanding our relationship.”
“We are delighted to join Steven Spielberg, Jeff Skoll and Reliance in launching this unique new venture,” Mr. Throop said. “We continually strive to partner with producers of the highest quality content, and Amblin Partners certainly represents the gold standard.”
Through this new partnership, eOne extends its collaboration into television production and distribution and expands its successful film distribution relationship across additional territories. eOne will handle the direct distribution of Amblin Partners films on a multi-territory output basis in Australia/New Zealand and Spain as well as the United Kingdom and the Benelux, where it previously had a successful output arrangement with DreamWorks Studios.
J.P.Morgan Chase structured and arranged the $500 million debt syndication together with Comerica Bank, which served as Co-Lead. Other financial institutions involved included Sun Trust Bank, Union Bank, City National Bank and Bank of America, among others. J.P.Morgan Chase and its predecessors have financed DreamWorks Studios since its inception in 1994.
Sales of Scott Weiland’s Music Soar Following His Death
According to Billboard, eight of the top 10 songs on the Hard Rock Digital Songs chart are held by one of those two Weiland-fronted groups, with six of those belonging to Stone Temple Pilots. Leading the charge is “Plush,” Stone Temple Pilots’ breakthrough single, with 18,000 downloads sold, and “Interstate Love Song” (14,000 downloads) is at No. 2. “Creep,” “Vasoline,” “Big Empty” and “Sex Type Thing” also cracked the chart. Two tracks from Velvet Revolver’s debut Contraband, “Fall to Pieces” and “Slither” came in at No. 4 and No. 9, respectively.
Two Stone Temple Pilots albums also sold enough to chart on the Billboard 200, with Thank You, their compilation, selling 17,000 units, good enough to get it to No. 47. It peaked at No. 26 upon its 2003 release. Core, their debut, sold 7,000 copies (No. 145), causing it return to the chart for the first time in more than 20 years.
Combined with an increase in airplay and streams — “Plush” had 1.3 million streams last week — Stone Temple Pilots ranked No. 33 on Billboard’s Artist 100 chart.
Sax Player Shows You Why Abandoned Warehouses Make Great Sounds
Tenor saxophone player Derek Brown shows us one of the great reasons why abandoned warehouses are a perfect place for sounds, rather than electronically-produced echoes, as he plays a little Bach in The Lucky Buck Warehouse, Hillsdale, MI.
That time Joe Walsh did a PSA for RADD
This is an ad by Joe Walsh for RADD, the nonprofit organization that uses celebrity power to create positive attitudes about road safety.
“Hey how ya doing. This is Joe Walsh. I’m speaking on behalf of RADD. It’s okay to rock and roll right? But don’t drive home drunk. If you’re drunk call me up. I have a limo, I’ll come and get you. A public service message brought to you by the US Department of Transportation, RADD, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Ad Council.”
Tom Jones Talks To NPR: ” I don’t really fancy drugs. They don’t appeal to me”
Tom Jones has lived a life worth writing about, and recently decided to take on the job himself. His new memoir, Tom Jones: Over the Top and Back, and traces his life from a tiny terrace house in a coal mining area of Wales to 20 years of superstardom — tours around the world, big productions in Las Vegas, a Bond movie theme and more. Perhaps most remarkably, it shows readers the origins of his career, when he was 16 and supporting a wife and baby. He is still married to that woman today.
“She knew that I wanted to be a singer when we were kids — and then, of course, we found out about the birds and the bees together,” Jones chuckles. “She said to me the other day, ‘You know, when you started with the hit records and everything and the TV shows, you said one day you’d slow down.’ She said, ‘When is this slowing down going to kick in, then?’ And I said, ‘Well, to be honest, I don’t think it will.'”
Jones also has a new album, Long Lost Suitcase of songs that span the range of styles he’s tackled over the years. He joined NPR’s Linda Wertheimer to discuss both projects; hear more of their conversation at the audio link.
The 3 Best Quotes From New Order In Q Magazine
New Order have come a long way since writing their earliest material in a rat-infested rehearsal rooms in the months that followed the death of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. It’s a journey that’s taken the band through using frogs for percussion, running a club, falling out without each other and much more.In August, 2015, New Order’s members – past and present – speak to Q’s Andrew Harrison in a career-traversing, oddity-exposing 21-page special. Feuding bandmates, a record label on the perpetual brink of bankruptcy, expensive drug habits and their triumphant return and more, here’s a few choice quotes that stood out…
“If you worked late, rats would appear looking for your sandwiches. We’d be up on chairs screaming, thinking they’d run up your trouser leg and bite your knackers. But it was a respite from the outside world, from everyone obsessing about Ian dying and trying to interview us. It was a bit of an umbrella.” – Bernard Sumner on the room in Salford where they wrote the first New Order material together
“We were literally trying all the sounds on the discs and eventually you’re like, ‘Hang on, frogs! This sounds alright.’ We did it all on instinct. Ok, you could say The Perfect Kiss, you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince… If you wait long enough, we’ll come up with an explanation. That we’ve made up afterwards.” – Stephen Morris on the band’s adoption of percussive amphibians
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be in a disco band. God knows, we did for years. These tunes just make you smile, don’t they? Joy Division would never, ever make something like that. Which is all the more reason for doing it.” – Stephen Morris on the disco elements brought to the their new album by bassist Tom Chapman
Brian Eno Pays A One-Minute Tribute To Can
In celebration of the band’s 35th anniversary, this DVD/CD set is now made available. The DVD includes “Can Free Concert”, filmed by Robbie Mueller and directed by Peter Przygodda, in front of 10,000 spectators in Cologne in 1972. It also includes this one-minute clip of the brilliant Brian Eno giving tribute to the band.
Watch John Travolta’s Screen Test For Welcome Back, Kotter
John Travolta’s first California-filmed television role was as a fall victim in Emergency!, in September 1972, but his first significant movie role was as Billy Nolan, a bully who was goaded into playing a prank on Sissy Spacek’s character in the horror film Carrie. Around the same time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter from 1975 to 1979, becoming a beloved character in one of my fave shows growing up. He played a cocky Italian-American, and “unofficial official” leader and resident heartthrob of the Sweathogs, and watching the screen test below, he was made for the role.
https://youtu.be/HmkDkwwRD6Q
How popular was this show? It had its own board game. Dig this commercial with lookalikes…
https://youtu.be/hW7T4RhyUps
