By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Influential film critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper are departing the movie-review show that bears their names, the two announced separately, leaving the program's future unclear.


Ebert, who has been sidelined as co-host of "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper" since 2006 while fighting cancer, said on Monday that the show's Walt Disney Co-owned syndicator wanted to take the show "in a new direction."

Ebert and Disney-ABC Domestic Television have been engaged in difficult contract renegotiations for the past year. Both sides declined repeated requests for comment.

"After 33 years on the air, 23 of them with Disney, the studio has decided to take the program named 'Siskel & Ebert' and then 'Ebert & Roeper' in a new direction. I will no longer be associated with it," Ebert said in his statement, which was posted on the Web site of his longtime employer, the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ebert, 66, became arguably America's best-known film critic through the show, on which he and original co-host Gene Siskel gave "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" grades to movies, and argued passionately with each other about their choices.

Bob Strauss, a film critic with the Los Angeles Daily News, said the duo introduced viewers to film's artistic side, instead of just treating it as entertainment.

"They got pretty much a whole nation to think about movies in a way that they might not have before," Strauss said.

Siskel died of a brain tumor in 1999, and was replaced in 2000 by Roeper, a columnist who works with Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times.


Roeper, 48, said on Sunday that his last appearance on the show would be an episode airing August 17. He said Disney offered to extend his contract several months ago, but ultimately the sides did not come to terms.

Roeper said he intends to "proceed elsewhere" and co-host another film review show that "honors the standards established by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert more than 30 years ago."

"I will be free to share the details on that program in the near future," he said.

Robert Wilonsky, a critic with the Dallas Observer who sparred with Roeper as a guest host, said in an e-mail the show brought "thoughtful conversation" about cinema to TV.

"The arguments were always spirited, and I hope Disney can find some way to keep that spirit alive without allowing the series to roll its end credits," Wilonsky said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Steve Gorman and Cynthia Osterman)


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