Paramount Global to Pursue Simultaneous Talks with Sony/Apollo and Skydance as M&A Drama Drags On

Sony Music, the largest music publisher in the world and the home of artists like Beyonce and Adele, has contacted more than 700 firms, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, to determine if they have used its songs to develop artificial intelligence systems.

Nicolas Cage was having fun as his new psychological thriller, “The Surfer,” scored a six-minute standing ovation at a Cannes Film Festival midnight screening on Friday night. Cage appeared to be having a ball, beaming from ear to ear and waving across the room as cheers erupted around the Palais.

Annika Pham The Swiss/French “Dog on Trial” is set to disrupt, move and entertain the Croisette from what is revealed in a first clip from sales outfit MK2 Films, exclusively shared with Variety. The film world premieres at Cannes Un Certain Regard May 19. Writer/actor-turned-director Laetitia Dosch, who delivered what Variety reviewer Peter Debruge called a ‘blazing-wildfire performance’ in the 2017 Camera d’or winner “Jeune Femme”, is herself taking a chance this year on the coveted award. Meanwhile Cosmos the Dog (aka Kodi in the film) will battle for the leather dog collar Palme Dog win.

Naman Ramachandran India is making a concerted push to become a global production hub with enhanced incentives, diverse locations and a strong presence at Cannes. It is a record year for India at Cannes, with its first title in competition in 30 years, Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” and seven more Indian or Indian-themed films across the festival’s various strands. In addition, the country has a strong Cannes Film Market presence, while the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, on behalf of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), has organized a range of events aimed at global content co-producers, sales agents and distributors at the India Pavilion on the Croisette.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Is Reba McEntire running a little behind Bob Hope, as an awards-show-hosting perennial… or actually a little bit ahead? It depends how you count. Because this year marks her 17th year hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards, aka the ACMs, and Hope did the Oscars 19 times, so she’s still two years from matching his record, if we compare these gigs. However, McEntire has also hosted a rival program, the CMA Awards, five times over the years.

Danger has reared its ugly head many times in the village of Emmerdale, and it’s no different this week when Ruby Fox-Milligan (Beth Cordingly) and Caleb Miligan (William Ash) go on the warpath. The pair are waiting for their son Nicky Miligan (Lewis Cope) to wake from a coma – and are out for revenge. Ethan Anderson (Emile John), who left Nicky for dead after a crash, is hit by a car.

It's the Netflix show everyone has been talking about, having amassed more than 18.6 million views since it launched on the streaming service last month and rocketing to number one across the globe.

EXCLUSIVE: After successfully launching the Extraction film franchise at Netflix, director Sam Hargrave has his eyes set on another potential franchise with a piece of IP that is revving its engines to get out the gate. Sources tell Deadline that Skydance and Mattel Films have closed a deal with Hargrave to direct a live-action movie based on Matchbox, Mattel’s iconic real-world die-cast toy vehicle line. David Coggeshall and Jonathan Tropper are penning the script.

EXCLUSIVE: SonyLIV’s ambitious Indian independence drama Freedom at Midnight has added British cast.

Tilda Swinton and Sandro Kopp are enjoying a day out together.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor UPADTED: After months of M&A talks, Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone might be going it alone after all — for now. Insiders tell Variety that the expectation at the company is that neither of the two offers in play — Skydance Media-RedBird Capital Partners and Sony Pictures Entertainment-Apollo Global Management — will come to fruition. And Redstone is said to have reluctantly concluded that a deal with David Ellison’s Skydance, a longtime partner of Paramount Pictures, will not be possible.

The clock is ticking down to midnight, the end of a month-long exclusive negotiating window between Paramount Global and Skydance Media. The David Ellison company has been circling Paramount for months and lobbed several offers to buy out Shari Redstone‘s controlling stake, backed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital.

Slipknot have announced their ‘Here Comes The Pain’ 25th anniversary US tour with Knocked Loose and more.The legendary heavy metal band are set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their 1999 self-titled debut album. The North American leg of their ‘Here Comes The Pain’ tour will see the masked members make stops in major cities such as Baltimore, New York City, Toronto, Ridgefield, Inglewood, Austin, Dallas and more before wrapping up in their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa for Knotfest.Knocked Loose, Orbit Culture and Vended will all serve as opening support on select dates.

EXCLUSIVE: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice writers and creators of the smash hit Netflix series Wednesday, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, have signed a first-look deal with Sony Pictures to develop films through the duo’s Millar Gough Ink banner, Deadline has learned.

George Galloway claims he is in talks with three Labour MPs and a member of the House of Lords whom he hopes to recruit to his party. The Rochdale MP and Workers Party of Britain leader warned a 'significant number' of councillors could also join by next week.

Paramount Global is set to announce as early as Monday morning that Bob Bakish is stepping down as CEO amid talks with Skydance and ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings that afternoon.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Amid the M&A drama enveloping Paramount Global, Bob Bakish is about to step down as CEO after eight years at the helm of Shari Redstone’s media empire. Bakish is expected to resign under pressure as early as Monday.

Christian Nodal has made a noteworthy contribution to Mexican regional music by crossing borders with his music. He is experiencing great professional fulfillment and has seamlessly blended his personal life with his music career.

Every week it seems there are large numbers of indie and specialty releases vying for attention, impossible to do them all, so when the option of reviewing Nowhere Special was placed in front of me I resisted at first after discovering it actually premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. That’s right, four years ago. I had to wonder what could possibly be good about a film delayed for that long in terms of getting a U.S. release date? Finally caving in to the persistent requests by the distributor and its passionate PR team, I decided to check it out. What I discovered was not that this was some sort of troubled film, not even close. Instead I found a spare but moving drama, powered by a remarkable lead performance, that is all about life and death and all things inbetween. At its heart it is also an inspiring story of dedicated parent and child, how we face the uncertain future, and what we leave behind. Nowhere Special is something special indeed. If you aren’t shedding well-earned tears by the end of this film you simply are not human.

Skydance and Paramount are deep into hashing out a complicated deal that would see the David Ellison’s studio and its backers take control of the storied film and television company owned by Shari Redstone. The exclusive month-long negotiating period through May 3 is likely to be extended perhaps by a few weeks, Deadline hears, given the complexity of the transaction.