Category: International

MUMBAI: Britney Spears has one less legal scuffle to come home to. Attorneys for the touring poptart have settled a lawsuit brought by a manger Spears worked with in the early aughts who complained that she broke her agreement to pay him commissions until 2008.

The “Toxic” singer worked with Johnny Wright until 2003, according to the suit, and she stopped cutting him checks at the end of 2006.

Also in court today, Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Reva Goetz, who has been overseeing Spears‘ conservatorship and approving money exchanges right and left, signed off on another $193,000 in legal fees to be paid by Spears‘ estate mainly to the attorneys who handled this case.

Meanwhile, Spears had the night off Friday in between shows at London‘s O2 Arena, where she‘s set to perform eight times before moving the Circus to Manchester‘s M.E.N. Arena on June 17.

MUMBAI

: Kung Fu star David Carradine has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room on Thursday. Thai police told the BBC a hotel maid found the 72-year-old naked in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and other parts of his body.

The US star was in Thailand filming his latest film, Stretch, according to his personal manager Chuck Binder.

Mr Binder said the news was “shocking”, adding: “He was full of life, always wanting to work… a great person.”
Police said the actor‘s body was found in a suite at the 5-star Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel.

A US embassy official confirmed the actor‘s death, but added that the cause of death had not yet been established.
However, Thai newspaper The Nation reported that police believe the actor took his own life, and preliminary investigations found that he hanged himself.

Carradine was part of an acting dynasty which included his father, John Carradine, and brothers Bruce, Keith and Robert. The star was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu, that has sequels in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

MUMBAI: Actor Sacha Baron Cohen is being sued by a woman in the US, who claims an incident that occurred while filming new movie Bruno left her ‘disabled‘. The woman Richelle Olson claims she was severely injured during filming following a struggle with Baron Cohen and his film crew at a charity bingo tournament.

The legal action, filed in California, alleges that Olson, 37, now needs a wheelchair or cane to move around. She is seeking unspecified damages of more than $25,000 (?15,275).

The legal action accuses Baron Cohen and NBC Universal, the studio behind the forthcoming film, of assault, battery and fraudulent misrepresentation, among other charges.

The incident took place in Palmdale, California, after Baron Cohen – in the guise of Austrian fashion pundit Bruno – was invited to take part in a bingo tournament raising money for nursing students.

According to legal documents, Ms Olson tried to remove the microphone from Baron Cohen after he began using obscene language while calling a bingo game.
She claims the actor pushed her over and she was surrounded by cameramen, who attacked her, all the while continuing to film.

Ms Olson alleges she ran from the stage and later fainted in a side room, hitting her head and suffering bleeding in her brain.
Representatives for Cohen and NBC Universal have declined to comment on the allegations.

According to legal documents, Ms Olson tried to remove the microphone from Baron Cohen after he began using obscene language while calling a bingo game.

She claims the actor pushed her over and she was surrounded by cameramen, who attacked her, all the while continuing to film.
Ms Olsen alleges she ran from the stage and later fainted in a side room, hitting her head and suffering bleeding in her brain.

Representatives for Cohen and NBC Universal have declined to comment on the allegations.

MUMBAI: Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s 1990 sci-fi thriller Total Recall is being remade, according to reports.

It has been reported that Kurt Wimmer, who penned the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair, is currently working on a script. Columbia Pictures, which secured the film‘s rights in February, has said the remake will be a “contemporised adaptation”.

It has however not been announced who is being considered for the lead role. The original film was based on the Philip K Dick story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.

The film follows a man who is haunted by a recurring dream of travelling to Mars – where he has never been – and a woman he has never met.

The ultra-violent film, from the creators of Alien, has since become a cult classic. Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin also starred in the movie.

 

MUMBAI: Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith, creators of Til Death have inked a new two-year overall deal with Sony Pictures TV. Under the seven-digit pact, the duo will develop series projects for the studio they have called home since 1997.

Yuspa and Goldsmith boast a perfect pilot-pickup record, with all four of their pilot scripts so far ordered to pilot: CBS‘ Stroller Wars (2005), Fox‘s Til Death (2006), ABC‘s Big Day (2006) and CBS‘ The Fish Tank (2009).

Two of them, Death and Day, were picked up to series, with Death heading into its fourth season. Yuspa and Goldsmith no longer are involved day-to-day on the Fox show starring Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher — it is run by comedy veteran Don Reo — but they continue as executive producers.

Before segueing into development, Yuspa and Goldsmith spent six years on the Sony TV-produced comedy The King of Queens which they joined after the pilot in 1998 as executive story editors, fresh out of graduating from USC‘s School of Cinema-Television.

It may be noted that the husband-and-wife duo rose to executive producers/ show-runners on the hit CBS series, which they steered for three seasons from 2001-04.

MUMBAI: Disney, NBC Universal and Hearst Corp. are near a deal to create a new joint venture that would house cable networks A&E, History Channel and Lifetime.

It may be noted that Hearst, Disney and NBC already are partners on A&E and History and a handful of spin-off channels (Hearst and Disney each owns 37.5 per cent and NBC has a 25 per cent stake) while Disney and Hearst co-own Lifetime.

The three companies would create a new company combining all the networks that would be majority owned by Hearst and Disney, with NBC getting a stake that would be less than 25 per cent, according to sources.

MUMBAI

: Many states that are cutting spending on schools, roads and other basics have been lavishing hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives on Hollywood studios to lure TV and movie productions – this, despite scant evidence that taxpayers come out ahead on such deals.

A recent survey found that states competing for projects handed out $1.8 billion in tax breaks and other advantages to the entertainment industry from 2006 through 2008.

Several states have even sweetened their incentives recently or are considering doing so, for fear that if they don‘t land the next major motion picture, someone else will.

“The industry has been able to play off North Carolina against South Carolina against Louisiana against Georgia. Louisiana raises its incentives, and it puts pressure on South Carolina, North Carolina and other states to do likewise,” said Bob Orr, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice who heads an anti-incentives group called the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law.

Some states argue that the tax breaks pay for themselves in revenue. Many others contend that even if tax revenue takes a hit, the film industry boosts their economies with an infusion of cash and jobs.

MUMBAI: Planet 51 a forthcoming computer-animated movie about an astronaut who discovers happy green people, has game maker Sega and HarperCollins signed up as promotional partners. Hollywood stars (Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel) lend their vocal talents.

Computer animation, once one of the most isolated corners of Hollywood, is rapidly becoming one of the most crowded. With the cost of computer animation coming down because of advances in technology and soaring box office receipts for family films, a broad range of new animation players are entering the multiplex.

In 2009 14 animated movies – most of them computer-generated – will have a wide release, compared with 8 such films in 2005. Pictures from independent producers like Imagi Studios, which has “Astro Boy” lined up for an October release, are competing with the likes of “Up,” from Pixar, and “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” set for release on July 1 by 20th Century Fox. Sony‘s own computer-animated movie, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” is scheduled to open on Sept. 18.

MUMBAI: Jean-Luc Godard, the icon of the French New Wave has been toiling away on “Le socialisme,” a political story that could be ready by this year.

It is now being rumoured that he‘s looking at The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million a first-person Holocaust book from New York Times writer Daniel Mendelsohn, as a possible directing vehicle.

The book, a best-seller when it came out three years ago, traces the writer‘s quest to determine his relatives‘ fate in the small town of Bolechow, Poland, during World War II and expands into larger questions of guilt and collective responsibility.

Lost won a National Book Critics Circle prize in the U.S. and made a splash in France, picking up the country‘s prestigious Prix Medicis.

Godard, who turns 79 in the fall, never has taken on the Holocaust directly, but several of his films — including the Algerian war picture Le petit soldat, the anti-war pic Les carabiniers and his most recent work, the 2004 triptych Notre musique — deal with complex political and philosophical questions.

MUMBAI: Despite a strong quarter at the box-office thanks to Tyler Perry‘s Madea Goes to Jail, My Bloody Valentine and The Haunting in Connecticut, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. recorded a loss of $28.6 million, or 25 cents a share, on revenue of $463.2 million, compared with a profit of $29.8 million in the year-earlier period.

The stock of Lions Gate stock fell 5 per cent to $5.96 in after-hours trading Monday after closing at $6.26 up 6 cents. The Santa Monica company was scheduled to hold a conference call with analysts this morning.

The disappointing fiscal fourth quarter caps off a rough 12 months for the independent studio, producer of the Tyler Perry movies and “Weeds” and “Mad Men” cable TV series.

For its fiscal year ended March 31, Lions Gate reported a loss of $163 million on revenue of $1.47 billion. The loss is about $25 million more than it had told analysts to expect in February and more than double last year‘s loss of $74 million.

The studio said disappointing releases in the second fiscal and third quarter were to blame as well as a $36.1million charge it took on its deal to distribute DVDs of Hit Entertainment, which produces videos for the family and children‘s market. Lions Gate also recorded higher movie marketing expenses than in earlier years.
Like much of Hollywood, Lions Gate has been stung by the weakened DVD market, although its home video unit actually had a stronger-than-expected fourth quarter because of the release of titles Bangkok Dangerous and Punisher 2.