Another year hosting the influential review show At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper? Roger Ebert (pictured left) and Richard Roeper (pictured right) are giving that a big thumbs-down. The two Chicago-based film reviewers won't be returning next season, reports the Associated Press.
Roeper said it was because he couldn't come to an agreement on a contract extension with Disney-ABC, and Ebert, whose announcement followed that of his colleague's, said in an e-mail that Disney-ABC Domestic Television had decided to take the program "in a new direction" and he won't be associated with it.Roeper, who joined Roger Ebert on At the Movies after original co-host Gene Siskel died in 1999, says he'll be co-hosting another, still-untitled movie review show that "honors the standards established by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert more than 30 years ago." Roeper's final appearance on At the Movies will air the weekend of Aug. 16. "We are all moving on," Roeper says, also wishing Disney "the best of luck with their new show, whatever form it may take."
Ebert, who has been fighting cancer, has not been on the show for the past two years.
