Ebert, Roeper will disband
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Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert says he’s cutting ties with the television show that he and the late Gene Siskel made famous.
In an e-mail Monday, Ebert said Disney-ABC Domestic Television had decided to take the show “in a new direction” and he won’t be associated with it. Ebert has been sidelined the last two years because of health issues that have robbed him of his voice.
His announcement came a day after Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper said he was leaving the nationally syndicated “At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper.”
Roeper said in a statement Sunday that he had failed to agree on a contract extension with Disney-ABC Domestic Television so his last appearance on the show will air the weekend of Aug. 16-17.
Roeper joined Ebert on the show in 2000, after Ebert’s original co-host, Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel, died of a brain tumor in 1999.
Siskel and Ebert had begun reviewing movies on television together in 1975.
Disney executives declined to comment.
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