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Tag: WME

  • Turner Broadcasting & WME | IMG partner to create eSports League

    Turner Broadcasting & WME | IMG partner to create eSports League

    MUMBAI: Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and WME | IMG have formed a new strategic partnership to create an eSports competitive gaming league.

     

    Through the venture, Turner and WME | IMG will deliver competitive gaming events for all platforms including premium live fan experiences, televised coverage airing exclusively on TBS and extensive, high quality live digital event coverage and content extensions. Turner Studios in Atlanta will become the East Coast epicenter for eSports competitive gaming, serving as the headquarters for the new league and primary operations facility for the live gaming experience.

     

    Video game publisher Valve Corporation’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be the featured game during the league’s first season. Turner Sports will produce the eSports competitions – in association with WME | IMG – and facilitate ad sales and sponsorship opportunities surrounding the new league.

     

    All aspects of the eSports league – including the live event experience – will be jointly managed by Turner Broadcasting and WME | IMG, with Turner Studios providing a state-of-the-art facility specifically created to showcase the live gaming competitions. Slated to begin in 2016, the televised presentation of the competitive gaming events will feature 10 consecutive weeks of programming twice per year – the most extensive commitment to televised eSports programming to date – airing Friday nights on TBS.

     

    In 2016, eSports tournaments will be televised twice per year with each 10-week period including a regular season, playoffs and championship. Both tournaments will include eSports teams facing off in competition while playing Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

     

    Additionally, digital coverage will include live daily competitive gaming content distributed Tuesday through Friday during each tournament week, as well as a live digital companion experience on Friday nights offered simultaneously with the TBS presentation. Digital content will also include behind-the-scenes event coverage and profiles on the eSports teams and competitors, with additional eSports coverage available through Bleacher Report’s top-rated Team Stream App.

     

    “eSports is one of the fastest growing entertainment genres among young adults around the world. We’re looking forward to creating a tremendous live event atmosphere, leveraging the infrastructure and expertise within Turner Studios, and presenting the competitions in an innovative way throughout our portfolio of leading brands,” said Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels.

     

    “We are proud to establish a leadership position in this rapidly growing arena, which I see as a tent pole for the next chapter of TBS. The level of rabid fandom and engagement that we see in this world is extraordinary and we aim to up the experience for both the players and fans alike and provide a cutting-edge live experience on both linear and digital TBS platforms,” said Turner chief creative officer and TBS and TNT president Kevin Reilly.

     

    “The eSports environment is purpose-built for a generation that consumes content across multiple platforms and seeks unique live experiences. We’re proud to be partnering with Turner to give competitive gaming a first-of-its-kind platform to meet the needs of the industry’s growing fan base and attract new audiences around the world,” added WME | IMG chief content officer Mark Shapiro. 

     

    “WME | IMG is constantly seeking new ways to help fans enjoy the eSports they love and attract more fans to the sport. This venture is a great example of our commitment to growing the eSports industry, and Turner is the perfect partner to make this a reality. We’ve so enjoyed working with Valve and the teams through this endeavor, and we’re excited for the future,” said WME | IMG’s eSports division head Tobias Sherman.

     

    eSports is a term used to refer to organized, multiplayer video gaming competitions that are rapidly expanding in popularity on a global scale. According to data provided by NewZoo, global eSports viewership is more than 226 million people with the total expected to climb to 323 million by 2018. 

     

    The addition of eSports competitive gaming is one of many live events set to air on TBS in early 2016. The network’s Spring slate will also feature the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Final Four, including TBS’s first-ever telecast of the National Championship game, as well as the iHeartRadio Music Awards. TBS’s upcoming live event programming will also include the first-ever Live Nation Music Awards – co-executive produced with IMG – in June and Turner Sports’ annual coverage of the Major League Baseball Postseason in October.

  • Selena Gomez signs with WME, Brillstein

    Selena Gomez signs with WME, Brillstein

    MUMBAI: The popular Wizards of Waverly Place lead Selena Gomez has decided to move on with a new management company after bidding adieu to CAA some time ago. Now, she will be handled by WME and Brillstein.

     

    Gomez is looking at giving her image a makeover from the teen idol image that is currently associated with her. She aspires to move into a more adult-oriented film and music. She was till now being managed by her mother and step father.

     

    The 21 year old actress has just finished shooting on Behaving Badly opposite Nat Wolff and Mary-Louise Parker. She has also been a part of Hotel Transylvania and Monte Carlo. Gomez has also released a few music albums with her first solo album debuting at first position on Billboard last year.

  • IMG Worldwide acquired by WME-Silver Lake for $2.3 bn

    IMG Worldwide acquired by WME-Silver Lake for $2.3 bn

    MUMBAI: The curtains have finally fallen on an acquisition which was in the news for quite some time now. Private investment firm Forstmann Little & Co has agreed to sell global sports, fashion and media business IMG Worldwide to US-based William Morris Endeavour  Entertainment (WME) and its stakeholder Silver Lake Partners at a price tag of around $2.3 billion.

     

    The final bidders CVC Capital and Chernin Entertainment and a consortium of ICM Partners and the Carlyle Group, bid less than $1.8 billion, thus losing out to WME.

     

    WME is a leading US-based entertainment and media company with an unparalleled client list of artists and content creators across film, television, music, literature, theatre and digital media and is led by co-CEOs Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell.

     

    It was formed by the 2009 merger of the William Morris Agency and Endeavor. The company has over 1,000 employees and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, with offices in New York, Nashville, London and Miami. Through its partner companies, including award-winning global creative agency Droga5, WME also provides clients with unique advertising, brand integration and marketing opportunities across traditional, social media, mobile and gaming platforms. Amongst the big names it represents figure: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Adam Sandler, Christopher Nolan, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey and Seth MacFarlane.

     

    IMG on the other hand has 3,500 employees and tremendous strengths in the sports business – representation, marketing, production and distribution – apart from representing 500 athletes, models and entertainers as clients. Among the names figure: Gisele Bundchen, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake.

     

    IMG owns IMG College, the leader in collegiate marketing, licensing and media rights  (it handles marketing and ticketing for 200 collegiate sports properties). It is slated to generate revenue of about $375 million and operating income of $75 million.

     

    The group has joint ventures like IMG Reliance, IMX, IMG CCTV and IMG Dolu in the emerging markets of India, Brazil, China and Turkey. Additionally, IMG Media is the world’s largest independent producer and distributor of sports programming. Its IMG Reliance joint venture promotes the All-India Football Federation.

     

    IMG Events and Federations owns and manages some of the most sought after events and includes long standing associations with the world’s most important sports organisations, leagues, and federations. IMG Fashion owns and operates fashion events around the world and IMG Models represents the world’s top models and leading designers. IMG Art+Commerce represents the most influential photographers, art directors and stylists.

     

    Silver Lake, on the other hand, is a global leader in private investments in technology and technology-enabled industries. The firm has offices in New York, Menlo Park, San Mateo, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo and has approximately $20 billion in combined assets under management. The Silver Lake Partners portfolio includes or has included technology and technology-enabled industry leaders such as Alibaba, Allyes, Ameritrade, Avago, Business Objects, Dell, Flextronics, Gartner, Gerson Lehrman Group, Global Blue, Go Daddy, Instinet, Intelsat, Interactive Data Corporation, MCI, Mercury Payment Systems, MultiPlan, the NASDAQ OMX Group, NetScout, NXP, Sabre, Seagate Technology, Skype, Spreadtrum, SunGard Data Systems, UGS, Vantage Data Centers, Virtu and William Morris Endeavor.

     

    IMG was created by McCormack and golfer Arnold Palmer in 1960. Forstmann Little purchased it a year after McCormack died in 2003, and then Forstmann Little founder Theodore Forstmann died in 2011.

     

    With the acquisition of IMG Worlwide, WME has now leaped ahead of its once larger rival the Creative Artistes Agency.

  • Gregory Plotkin to direct Paranormal Activity 5

    Gregory Plotkin to direct Paranormal Activity 5

    Mumbai: Gregory Plotkin, who served as the editor and co-producer of the last three paranormal activity movies, is all set to have his directorial debut with the fifth installment of the popular horror series.

     

    He has also worked on another movie called ‘Paranormal Activity: The Marked ones’, due to release in January next year.

     

    With a long list of credits as an editor or assistant editor on films such as ‘The Insider’ and ‘The Break-up’, he now gets to be a lead behind the camera.

     

    The story is being written by Jason Pagan and Andrew Deutschman. Plotkin is repped by WME and Circle of Confusion. Jason Blum and Oren Peli are producers.

  • Cate Blanchett to make directorial debut with The Dinner

    Cate Blanchett to make directorial debut with The Dinner

    MUMBAI: The film adaptation of Herman Koch’s novel The Dinner will see Cate Blanchett behind the cameras. The movie is produced by Cotty Chubb and the executive producers are Eva Maria Daniels and Olga Segura.

     

    The novel is about two families who are struggling to make a tough decision about their teenage childrens’ lives. The whole movie will happen over a dinner. The book became a bestseller in Europe in 2009.

     

    Oren Moverman who worked on ‘The Messenger’ is adapting the script. He is repped by WME and New York Office. Blanchett received acclaim for her movie ‘Blue Jasmine’, directed by Woody Allen. She is repped by CAA and RGM Artists.

  • Idris Elba to star in Beasts of No Nation

    Idris Elba to star in Beasts of No Nation

    MUMBAI: The film financed by Red Crown Productions has roped in Elba, a prominent British actor who was recently seen in Pacific Rim as Stacker Pentecost. Cary Fukunaga will direct the adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala’s bestselling novel.

     

    Red Crown Productions’ Daniela Taplin Lundberg and Riva Marker, Parliament of Owls’ Fukunaga and Primary Productions’ principal Amy Kaufman are producers while Daniel Crown and Bill Benenson will be executive producers.

     

    The story is about a young boy called Agu who turns to mercenary fighters when his west African country is engulfed by a war. He has to face the death of his father and the disappearance of his mother as

     

    sister while fighting with a mute man he makes a friend. He will play the lead role of commander.

     

    Beasts of No Nation was packaged by WME. IM Global’s specialty label Acclaim will do international sales at Toronto Film Festival. Fukunaga has previously directed Jane Eyre and is currently on HBO’s series True Detective.

     

    Elba is to be seen as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, releasing this November. Both Elba and Fukunaga are repped by WME and managed by Anonymous content.

  • Rob Corddry in talks to join Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel in ‘Sex Tape’

    Rob Corddry in talks to join Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel in ‘Sex Tape’

    MUMBAI: Rob Corddry is in negotiations to join Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel in Sony’s Sex Tape, which Jake Kasdan is directing.

     

    The story revolves around a husband (Segel) and wife (Diaz) who take a night off from the kids and decide to spice things up by making a sex tape. When they wake up the next morning, the tape is missing, and the search is on.

     

    Corddry will play the couple’s friend who goes along on the adventure. Sex Tape is eyeing a shoot in the fall, with Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch producing.

     

    Corddry is in the middle of a busy period. He just wrapped filming Hot Tub Time Machine 2, for which he also helped craft the story, and can be seen on screens in The Way, Way Back. This year he also appeared in Warm Bodies and Pain & Gainand stars with Lake Bell in the indie comedy In a World, which Roadside Attractions opens 9 August.

     

    Childrens Hospital, the Adult Swim comedy he created and stars in, is coming off its second Emmy nomination. (Corddry also created the Adult Swim series Newsreaders, which wrapped its first season.)

     

    The funnyman is repped by WME and Principato-Young Entertainment and Hansen Jacobson.

  • Anna Torv and Jennifer Jason Leigh to be a part of HBO’s ‘Open’

    Anna Torv and Jennifer Jason Leigh to be a part of HBO’s ‘Open’

    MUMBAI: The sexuality drama series Open is being produced by Ryan Murphy. Anna Torv has had a successful stint with Fringe on Fox for five years. Jennifer Jason Leigh will be the on-screen love interest of Torv. The series will explore sexuality in the light of monogamy and intimacy in relationships.

     

    The series starts off with Torv and Leigh in a relationship but the entrance of Grace in Torv’s on screen character’s life, issues crop up between the two. The actor who will play the role of Grace is still under process.

     

    Scott Speedman will be Grace’s gynaecologist husband. Glee’s Dante Di Loreto will be the executive producer for Ryan Murphy Television and 20th Television’s cable arm Fox 21.

     

    Forv is repped by WME and United Management in Australia while Leigh is repped by CAA, Untitled and Sloane Offer. Open would be Murphy’s second project with HBO.

  • Psy moves from CAA to WME

    Psy moves from CAA to WME

    MUMBAI: Breaking records with ‘Gangnam Style‘ 2012 and crossing 1.7 billion YouTube views, South Korean pop star Psy has moved on from the talent agency CAA (Creative Artists Agency) to WME (William Morris Endeavour). He was the first ever person to reach a billion views on YouTube.

    The agency will represent Psy in all markets outside South Korea. The agency will be working to expand Psy‘s presence in the music industry as well as look for opportunities across platforms such as film, television, endorsements, books and digital media.

    His manager will still be Scooter Braun who also manages Justin Bieber. Psy had got the eyes of the world with Gangnam Style and then hit another score with ‘Gentleman‘. The Associated Press has put his earnings at $8.1 million, mostly due to YouTube advertisements and iTunes.