IS HOPE FADING FOR SPIDEY ON BROADWAY?

Although the $65-million Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will have to run for years before it is able to generate a profit, the general manager of the Foxwoods Theater, where it is playing, is already talking to producers of other upcoming productions about keeping his theater in mind, the New York Times reported […]

HARRY WINS BY A HAIR OVER TANGLED

The weekend box office proved to be tighter than any analyst had expected. Final figures showed that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 earned $49.09 million. But Disney’s Tangled was close behind with $48.77. In fact just $320,049 separated the two leaders. Paramount/DreamWorks Animation’s Megamind, meanwhile, continued its remarkable run, falling just 21 […]

JACKSON FIRES HOBBIT CASTING MANAGER

A casting manager looking for extras to play Hobbits in the forthcoming Lord of the Rings prequel(s) The Hobbit has been fired after video footage caught him telling those who showed up for an open audition, “We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be — whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got […]

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK DIRECTOR DEAD AT 87

Irvin Kershner, best known as the director of the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, has died in Los Angeles after a long illness at the age of 87. In a statement, George Lucas, who reportedly hired Kershner after being impressed with his work on The Eyes of Laura Mars, said that he had […]

COMCAST SEEKING FEES FROM VIDEO PROVIDERS

The company that handles Netflix’s Internet streaming, Level 3 Communications, has accused Comcast, the country’s largest cable-TV and Internet service provider, of erecting a “toll booth” on the Internet highway by demanding a recurring fee for broadband access. If allowed to stand, Level 3 Communications said, Comcast would be able “to unilaterally decide how much […]

MURDOCH SETS SIGHTS ON MIDDLE EAST

The British satellite service BSkyB, controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, plans to launch a Middle East Arabic-language news channel that will compete with al-Jazeera. It will operate under the Sky News banner, with headquarters in Abu Dhabi. BSkyB is partnering with Abu DhabiMedia Investment Corp., owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan in […]

JULIA ROBERTS PAID $1.4 MILLION TO DO COFFEE COMMERCIAL

Julia Roberts, who in the 1990s was regarded as Hollywood’s highest-paid actress, may be aiming for a similar record for TV commercials. Reports out of Italy on Monday indicated that Roberts was paid about $1.4 million to appear in a 45-second commercial that will only be seen outside of North America. The Italian commercial for […]

CONAN CONTINUES TO BEAT JAY AMONG YOUNGER VIEWERS

One year ago, during the week of Nov. 16-20, 2009, Conan O’Brien’s ratings (1.0) among 18-49-year-old viewers while he still hosted the Tonight show were better than Jay Leno’s (0.9) were during the week of Nov. 15=19, 2010, the web site TVByTheNumbers observed on Monday. That was the same margin that separated O’Brien — on […]

FOOTBALL LOSES YARDAGE, STILL WINS

The audience for NFL football on Sunday was down slightly from previous weeks, but the telecasts still scored the highest ratings of the night. An overrun on Fox at 7:00 p.m. recorded 16.4 million viewers, while NBC’s Sunday Night Football averaged 15.4 million viewers. Despite the solid numbers of the NFL telecasts, CBS produced impressive […]

COMCAST SUBSCRIBERS LOSE INTERNET SERVICE

Comcast, which is both the nation’s largest cable-TV and Internet service provider, was unable to provide Internet service to customers all along the East Coast, from New England to Washington DC, Sunday night. The company blamed “a server issue” but provided no further explanation. Although a statement by Comcast said that the disruption was limited […]

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