MILAN (Reuters Life!) - Julia Roberts has returned to work with Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani to raise money for the fight against AIDS in Africa, designing a T-shirt to be sold under the "Red" label. The Academy Award-winning actress has drawn the symbolic tree of life with the words "revolution.evolution.devotion" arching over its foliage.
The words are behind the acronym for "Red," the name of a product-branding alliance to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Under the scheme -- the brain-child of U2 rock star Bono and Bobby Shriver, the nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy -- manufacturers channel a portion of the profits from "Red"-branded goods to the fund.
Money raised from events and product sales tied to the label have raised more than $110 million since it began in 2006, according to a statement from Giorgio Armani.
The T-shirt designed by Roberts will go on sale in September both online and at Emporio Armani stores worldwide, a spokeswoman for the fashion designer said.
Available for men and women, the T-shirt will also have her signature inside.
It is the second time that Roberts has worked with Armani for the "Red" label. The first time saw her use the same idea of the tree for a leather bracelet.
Armani also sells clothing, accessories, eyewear, watches, fragrances and jewellery under the "Red" label, offering 40 percent of the gross profit margin on sales to the fund
NEW YORK - Michael Jackson marked a personal milestone Friday: his 50th birthday.The 13-time Grammy winner, who has sold more than 750 million albums, told ABC News' "Good Morning America" that he's "looking forward to doing a lot of great things. ... I think the best is yet to come in my true humble opinion."
Jackson talked to ABC by phone Thursday.
"People see some of the things I do and they say, `Why don't you show this to the world? People don't know you do these things.' And maybe I will," he said.
Jackson said recording the blockbuster albums "Thriller" and "Off the Wall" were the happiest times of his life.
"That meant very much to me and seemed to be received so beautifully by the public and the world. You know, I enjoyed it very much," he said.
As for his birthday plans, "I'll just have a little cake with my children and we'll probably watch some cartoons," he said.
Jackson, a twice-divorced father of three, said he aims to provide a normal life for his children.
"I am letting them enjoy their childhood as much as possible. ... I let them go to the arcade and go to the movies and do things. I think that comes naturally. I want them to get to do things I didn't get to do," he said.
"I get pretty emotional when I see them having a wonderful time," he said.
Jackson was asked if he had received a membership card from AARP, which focuses on the needs and concerns of those 50 and older.
"Not that I know of!" he said, laughing.
DETROIT (Billboard) - Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is getting ready to hit the road to promote a new album he considers "a little more accessible and familiar" than some of his other solo releases. "Gift of Screws" (Reprise/Warner Bros.) comes out on September 16, while Buckingham begins a six-week tour on September 7 in Saratoga, Calif. A special promotion bundles a copy of the album with ticket purchases for the tour.
The album marks the followup to 2005's acoustic-oriented "Under the Skin," which peaked at No. 80 on the Billboard 200. But the new set has an interesting history that dates back to the beginning of the decade.
Buckingham was making a solo album with the "Gift of Screws" title in 2001 when Fleetwood Mac decided to reconvene for sessions that led to the band's 2003 album "Say You Will" and subsequent world tour. Buckingham allowed the group to use several of the songs intended for his album -- with, he hastens to explain, no regrets on his part.
"It's happened maybe five other times in the past that the machinery or the politics of Fleetwood Mac moved in, intervened and something was put on the shelf," says Buckingham, who joined the group with then-girlfriend Stevie Nicks in 1974, left in 1987 and rejoined for "The Dance" in 1997.
"So that's been a pattern. It's always seemed to me that's the right thing to do. 'Gift of Screws' as an album wasn't really finished, so I was trying to do the right thing for the good of the whole."
Buckingham's initial "Gift of Screws" recordings have been widely bootlegged, and the current version includes several of those songs, among them the title track, "Right Place to Fade" and "Wait for You." The first single is "Did You Miss Me."
"I didn't really go in there and plan to make a rocking album," says Buckingham, who produced all but two of the 10 songs. "For whatever reason, this seems to hearken back to earlier work, Fleetwood Mac in particular. I think that's something the record company recognizes and feels good about."
The Fleetwood Mac rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who helped out during the original sessions, still appear on the album. Also on the disc are the musicians who accompanied Buckingham on his "Under the Skin" tour and appear on the "Live at the Bass Performance Hall" CD/DVD that was released earlier this year.
As for Fleetwood Mac, a tour and possibly some new recording loom in early 2009.
Reuters/Billboard
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Over 38 million Americans tuned in for television coverage of Barack Obama accepting the Democratic nomination for U.S. president on Thursday in what is believed to be the most watched convention speech ever. Obama's TV audience, reaching nearly a fourth of all U.S. households, was by far the largest of the four-day Democratic National Convention, surpassing the addresses by his running mate, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, and his onetime rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
It also easily eclipsed the acceptance speeches of either of Obama's two immediate Democratic predecessors or the 27.6 million viewers President George W. Bush drew on the fourth night of the Republican National Convention in 2004, when he was nominated for a second term.
Obama's historic address, by the first African American chosen to lead a major political party in the race for the White House, averaged 38.4 million U.S. viewers across all major networks, Nielsen Media Research reported on Friday.
That figure is the highest for any single night of any major party convention going back to 1996, the last election cycle for which Nielsen keeps night-by-night data.
The 1992 conventions as a whole garnered higher household ratings in prime time than this week's Democratic gathering in Denver, meaning a larger percentage of homes were tuned in to those earlier events. The same is true for most conventions held from 1960 to 1984.
But because today's household ratings translate into a larger number of individuals based on population growth, Nielsen analyst Anne Elliot said Obama's audience tally is probably the biggest for any televised convention speech in history.
By comparison, 24.4 million viewers saw the 2004 Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, give his acceptance speech, and fewer still, 21.8 million, tuned in for the final night of the 2000 convention when then-Vice President Al Gore was nominated as the party's standard bearer.
The robust total for Obama, who delivered his speech in a football stadium packed with 84,000 cheering supporters, was yet another sign of the excitement generated by the Illinois senator's charisma and message of change.
The prime-time TV audience for all four days of the convention, averaging 30.2 million viewers, also easily topped the 24.4 million total for 2004 and 20.6 million from 2000.
Still, comparisons with previous election cycles are not precise matchups due to different Nielsen metrics.
In 2004, for example, Nielsen measured viewership across six networks -- the Big Three broadcasters ABC, CBS and NBC and cable news networks Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC -- whereas this year Nielsen added four smaller networks -- BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo.
Moreover, Nielsen is now including time-shifted viewing by people watching later the same day through digital video recorders -- data not included in previous cycles.
The Republican National Convention kicks off in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Monday. Presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, is hoping his bold pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, will raise the excitement level for his campaign.
VENICE, Italy - Guillermo Arriaga's directorial debut, "The Burning Plain," opens with a wide shot of a trailer ablaze in the New Mexico desert. While the landscape appears barren and exposed, it is concealing secrets that drive the story "The Burning Plain," written and directed by the "21 Grams" and "Babel" screenwriter, stars Charlize Theron as a troubled Oregon restaurant manager who is forced to confront her past when a mysterious visitor arrives from Mexico. Kim Basinger appears in flashbacks as Sylvia's mother, Gina, at a pivotal moment in her young life.
The film, which debuts at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, is one of 21 movies competing for the Golden Lion, which will be awarded Sept. 6. Directed by Mexico-born Arriaga, it is one of five U.S. pictures in competition.
Landscape is central to the movie — which Arriaga initially had titled, "The Four Elements." Water, earth, wind and fire are present as the story moves back and forth from the searing dryness of New Mexico to the nonstop rain in Portland, Ore.
"I have always been driven to the desert. I think the landscape itself influences people in a certain way," Arriaga told a news conference. "We experienced the desert and the sun and the extreme cold in the desert to the nonstop rain in Oregon. I think the weather and the landscape also influences the character."
Cinematographer Robert Elswit, who won an Oscar for "There Will Be Blood," was lauded by Arriaga for stunning shots of the New Mexico desert and Oregon coastline.
The movie is told through four converging plot lines, and cuts back and forth through time to reveal Sylvia's story.
"This is the exploration of the mystery of a woman called Sylvia who has an emotional journey that takes her to the extremes. It explores what makes her so damaged," Arriaga said.
No stranger to flawed characters, Theron said she loved the role of Sylvia.
"You should ask people that question. Why are people so flawed? Because that's who we are," Theron said. "Why is it when you watch a film and something happens that moves you — it either moves you to tears or gives a chill down your spine — it's because we can see ourselves in that moment."
Theron, who also worked as a producer on the film, said there was a list of actresses to play the role of Gina, but they were thrilled to get Basinger.
"She's amazing," Theron said. "There is something about Kim. There's a strength with her leftover vulnerability from her 20s that's just unbelievably beautiful to watch. There are moments on the screen when she's shaking, her entire body is shaking for real. You couldn't act th
NEW YORK - Jennifer Aniston will return home to NBC, the TV network where she became a breakout star on the hit sitcom "Friends."
She's currently filming a guest appearance on the network's "30 Rock," Aniston publicist Stephen Huvane confirmed Friday.
There were no immediate details on the role Aniston will play — as herself or a fictitious character — or the episode's planned air date.
The New York-based series, which begins its third season in October, stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin in a behind-the-scenes, sometimes self-directed spoof of a television network and the huge corporation that owns it. The show has won a modest but devoted following, and critical raves. Awards include Golden Globes, a Peabody and last year's Emmy for outstanding comedy series.
With its show-biz slant, it has become a haven for guest appearances by big names from entertainment — even politics, including Al Gore.
Another of the six-member "Friends" troupe, David Schwimmer, had a "30 Rock" guest shot last season.
Since "Friends" concluded its highly successful 10-year run in 2004, Aniston has concentrated on films, including "Friends with Money," "The Break-Up."
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NBC is owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal.
DENVER - The Force is with Obama George Lucas was among the entertainers and Hollywood types who were spotted in the halls of Invesco Field on Thursday in the hours leading up to Barack Obama's historic acceptance speech. Forest Whitaker arrived with his wife Keisha and Star Jones, while will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas was spotted leaving the field level following Stevie Wonder's sound check.
Before singing the national anthem to a slowly filling stadium, Jennifer Hudson appeared lost in thought, wearing a casual grey dress and listening to iPod earphones as her handlers asked for directions to the podium. While waiting, she typed on a Sidekick.
Also spotted on the field in the hours leading up to the presentation: Daniel Dae Kim of "Lost," new mom Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren, Rosario Dawson, Wilmer Valderrama, and Fergie — who waved to fans shouting her name.
"Fired up!" said an excited Spike Lee. "Bigger than the Super Bowl!"
The musical lineup for the evening included will.i.am performing with John Legend, Sheryl Crow (who Obama has said is among the artists on his iPod), Wonder and Michael McDonald.
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Earlier in the day, Steven Spielberg, who directed a short film on veterans that shown Wednesday at the convention, was spotted entering the Pepsi Center.
Jennifer Lopez spoke at a reception honoring children's rights activist Marian Wright Edelman. Ben Affleck read excerpts from a Howard Zinn book and made an appearance at the city's food bank for America's Second Harvest.
Affleck was joined by his wife, Jennifer Garner, at the book reading at the Starz Green Room across the street from the Pepsi Center. Also participating: Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, Taye Diggs, Hill Harper and Josh Brolin.
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Other celebrity sightings around Denver:
• The Black Eyed Peas performed a concert at the Fillmore Auditorium for the Creative Coalition. Fergie praised Hillary Rodham Clinton's Tuesday-night speech, saying Clinton "really spoke to me as a woman. And I think she spoke to a lot of people in that way."
• Politicians including former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner attended a ONE Campaign party featuring a Kanye West performance. Also in attendance: Forest Whitaker, Kal Penn, Jamie Foxx and director Davis Guggenheim.
• Muhammad Ali sat in the convention audience.
• Fran Drescher, Ashley Judd and Joy Bryant joined Lopez at the reception honoring Edelman.
• Hathaway and others gathered at a morning reception honoring Annette Bening for her work narrating the documentary "14 Women," about women in the U.S. Senate.
• Big Boi of Outkast was at the airport on his way out of town after hosting a Radio One show where he interviewed John Legend, among others.
Los Angeles (E! Online) - Even Batman gets tired
he Dark Knight grossed $986,453 yesterday, the first time the supreme summer blockbuster had failed to make at least $1 million in a single day.
The movie, already Hollywood's No. 2 all-time grosser at the domestic box office, is expected to rally this weekend, and bring its overall total to an epic $500 million.
Through Wednesday, its 41st day in release, The Dark Knight had grossed $492.7 million.
At the same point in its run in 1998, Titanic, Hollywood's reigning domestic champ, had grossed $280.2 million.
Any appearance that The Dark Knight is winning the race with Titanic, however, is deceiving.
By slipping below $1 million yesterday, The Dark Knight reached its tipping point. As a rule, once a movie falls, it doesn't get back up, weekends excluded.
This was mostly true of Titanic, too. The big difference: Titanic kept up its $1-million-a-day-or-more pace for 101 days. For The Dark Knight, that would have meant not running out of steam until about Halloween.
In all, Titanic remained in theaters for nearly 300 days, and grossed $601 million—back when the average movie ticket cost about half of today's.
A couple of weekends ago, Warners Brothers, the studio behind The Dark Knight, reiterated its stance that its horse wasn't going to beat Titanic. "Titanic is king of the box office," studio distribution chief Dan Fellman said, "and will remain that way forever."
With its millions piled nearly as high, The Dark Knight has enjoyed a record summer that might not be soon replicated itself.
NEW YORK - This fall is full of questions for the topsy-turvy music world Will Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" finally be released?
Can Britney manage a comeback?
Will anyone escape the tween typhoon of "High School Musical 3"?
Nevertheless, five albums to look for (we think):
• "Death Magnetic," Metallica: On Sept. 12, Metallica will drop their much-awaited, Rick Rubin-produced new album. Their ninth studio disc — and first in five years — is said to return the band to their speed metal roots. The band has been shy about playing the new tunes in concert, but expectations are high thanks to Rubin's involvement. Even with all their black clothes, Metallica's fans remain an extremely hopeful bunch.
• "Paper Trail," T.I.: The Atlanta-based rapper returns with his sixth album, which already boasts a hot single: "Whatever You Like." Due out Sept. 30, "Paper Trail" is all but assured of keeping T.I.'s streak of No. 1 albums intact. But the rapper (real name: Clifford Harris) will also have a balancing act in promoting it. While he continues to rap about violence, he's also speaking against it as part of a punishment handed out in March after pleading guilty to federal weapons charges. Besides at least 1,000 hours of community service, he faces almost a year in jail.
• "Black Ice," AC/DC: It's been eight years since AC/DC made a studio album, and a lot has changed since then. For starters, just look at how the seminal Australian hard rock band is releasing their new album on Oct. 20: only through Wal-Mart, Sam's Club stores and ACDC.com. Stoking excitement have been reports that suggest "Black Ice" bears similarities to AC/DC's classic 1980 disc "Back in Black," one of the best-selling albums of all time.
• "Dear Science," TV on the Radio: Not all the hotly anticipated albums are surefire chart-toppers. Music fans are also eager for new material from Lucinda Williams, Jenny Lewis, Kings of Leon and this ambitious Brooklyn band. TV on the Radio's last album, the absurdly named "Return to Cookie Mountain," topped many critics' best-of lists for 2006 (including this writer's). With each subsequent disc, TV on the Radio has seemed to mature — a trajectory that suggests very good things for "Dear Science" (out Sept. 23).
• "High School Musical 3: Senior Year": Don't even try to fight it. The latest big-screen installment — and the accompanying soundtrack out Oct. 21 — of this Disney Channel phenomenon will be received with teenybopper hysteria in late October. If you must, begin constructing your bomb shelter now. But don't stop, even for a second, to gaze into Zac Efron's eyes. They ... will ... draw ... you ... in.
VENICE, Italy - Of all the women Valentino has dressed in his 45-year career — from Jacqueline Kennedy to Mariella Agnelli to Gwyneth Paltrow — one red carpet moment stands out: When Julia Roberts wore a vintage black-and-white Valentino gown when she was awarded her best actress Oscar."I have to be very sincere. The person that makes me feel very happy, also because (she) chose vintage, was Julia Roberts in `Erin Brockovich' when she got the Academy Award," Valentino told a press conference. "I was very excited. I was not in Los Angeles, but I saw on television and I really was excited to see her when she appeared with my dress."
Valentino, who has spent his career dressing the world's most glamorous women for the red carpet, walked it himself Thursday for the Venice Film Festival premiere of "Valentino: The Last Emperor," a documentary by Vanity Fair special correspondent Matt Tyrnauer.
The gala evening premiere held at the famed La Fenice opera house was attended by Valentino muses such as Elizabeth Hurley and Claire Danes. A party was to follow at the Peggy Guggenheim museum.
Tyrnauer followed Valentino around for the two years leading up to the designer's retirement last January, catching him as he created gorgeous gowns for the runway and gradually accepted the idea of retirement.
Valentino, who was born Valentino Garavani, said he didn't perform for the cameras or try to hide any aspect of his personality — even when he got into disagreements with his longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti.
"When I work and I create, I am not very approachable. To ... know everything I say was being recorded did irritate me," he said.
"The film was showing exactly what I am. There were moments of anger, when somebody says something that I don't like, but I was completely myself from the beginning to the end and nothing was edited."
Tyrnauer praised Valentino and Giammetti for enduring the two years of filming — saying there were very few instances when they asked that the cameras be turned off — and those are included in the film.
"It was amazing to kind of hang out with Valentino and Giancarlo for two years," Tyrnauer said. "They put up with a lot."
Valentino expressed satisfaction with the final product, and said he was full of emotion watching the documentary's premiere Thursday morning, which received a standing ovation. The documentary was shown out of competition.
Valentino said he was never concerned that the film would demystify his world.
"I don't think haute couture will ever really die. It's like a beautiful song, it will be there forever and it will never go out of fashion," he said.
NEW YORK (Adweek) - Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens doesn't take no for an answer. At least he didn't when NBC -- and sibling cable networks CNBC and MSNBC -- apparently rejected his latest ad stating the case for the U.S. to decrease its dependence on foreign oil.
In the war of words that ensued, Pickens won his fight to get the spot on all three nets.
The ad was rejected Tuesday, according to sources in the Pickens camp, for making unsubstantiated claims and for being "controversial." NBC issued a statement late Wednesday declaring that it never made a final decision on whether to broadcast the commercial.
Clearly, Pickens believed the ad had been barred. On Wednesday, his lawyers sent a letter to NBC and he appeared on Fox News' Neil Cavuto program to express his dismay. A copy of the "lawyer letter" was made public by Pickens at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Two hours later, a source close to Pickens said NBC accepted the ad for all three networks.
The latest ad is a 15-second spot that says Iran is re-engineering domestic cars to run on natural gas so it can sell more oil abroad at hefty rates, while "we're not doing a thing" in the U.S. to cut consumption.
A source said NBC initially rejected the ad on two grounds: controversial subject matter and failure to support the statement that nothing is being done to cut domestic consumption. "The ad is not acceptable for air on the NBC network because the spots address controversial issues and it is our policy not to air ads addressing such issues on our network," NBC wrote in rejecting the ad, said a source who read the letter to Adweek.
In addition, the network said the ad was not acceptable for air on the networks "because you have not established to our satisfaction that there is a reasonable basis for the claim that 'we are not doing a thing here."'
Pickens and his team were puzzled because all the previous ads they placed, including 60-second spots that the networks did air, were at least equally controversial. For example, in one previous spot, Pickens says when it comes to domestic oil reserves, America should "drill, drill, drill."
The letter sent to NBC on Pickens' behalf by the Washington law firm Patton Boggs and dated August 27 charged the network with "selectively applying the First Amendment and denying your viewers access to information that is important to their education and understanding of the issue of energy independence."
In a statement issued Wednesday evening after approving the ad, NBC said: "We have been airing seven of the eight advertisements that were submitted for broadcast by T. Boone Pickens. As we were in the process of clearing the eighth, Mr. Pickens released his statement prematurely."
The statement did not address why the network sent Pickens a notice on Tuesday that appeared to reject the ad.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
LOS ANGELES - Lindsay Lohan had words for her father on her blog.The 22-year-old actress lashed out at father Michael by calling him a "public embarrassment" and a "bully" in a MySpace blog entry posted Thursday. Earlier in the week, Michael said in an interview with E! that Lohan gal pal Samantha Ronson was "using" his daughter.
Lohan's publicist, Leslie Sloane-Zelnik, confirmed the post by Lohan was legitimate.
"If you have something to say to me, say it to my face — that's what I have believed my whole life — don't be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world," Lohan wrote.
The father and daughter have publicly quarreled for years. Lohan said in the dash-happy blog post that she tried to make things work in hopes "of having a father again" and "wanting things to change" despite what her mother and siblings have gone through with him.
Lohan continued: "Having said that — the people were right, and he is yet to change — but this time, without his daughter by his side — he has become a public embarrassment and a bully — to my family, my co-workers, my friends and a girl that means the world to me (it's obvious who that is)."
The "Mean Girls" star went on to say that she believes her father is addicted to fame, and if he really cared about her, he would respect her wishes. She also said than Ronson and Lohan's mother Dina would never "sell me out." Lohan ended the post by saying that she had a therapist and it's not a cameraman at x17 (the celebrity photo agency and Web site).
In a separate post, Ronson said she was angry when she first heard about Michael's attack on her and called him a man "who is so desperate for attention that he goes to the media whenever possible." Ronson went on to say she felt "no need to publicly defend my role in Lindsay's life — I'm just sorry that she likes me more than him."
After the blog entries were posted Thursday, Michael told OK! magazine in an exclamation point-heavy statement that his concerns about Ronson were all generated by ex-wife Dina, who stars alongside their 14-year-old daughter Ali in the E! reality series "Living Lohan." Michael called Dina a "money-loving, fame-seeking, self-serving deceiver."
"All I want is for Lindsay to be healthy and in a good relationship," he also said in the statement. "I want her to use the gifts she has in the best ways and to help others! I said it from the very beginning: Show me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are! People may deceive us, but our eyes and facts don't! OPEN YOUR EYES!!!"
Michael, a former Wall Street broker, married Dina in 1985. They settled a long-simmering divorce in August, though they returned to court in New York earlier this year over custody issues. Michael was released from prison in March 2007 after serving nearly two years for attempted assault and driving while intoxicated.
BERLIN - A German film studio has offered to negotiate a settlement with a dozen extras who were injured on the set of the Tom Cruise film "Valkyrie," despite their demands that the actor and his production company, United Artists, pay them $11 million.
"We have offered a settlement," Charles Woebcken, president and chief executive of Studio Babelsberg AG, which co-produced the film with United Artists. "But they haven't even reacted."
Though United Artists did not hire them, the 12 extras sent the company a letter demanding $11 million for injuries when the door of a truck they were riding in during the film shoot in August 2007 fell open. At the time, reports said several suffered cuts, bruises and some broken bones.
A statement from Julie Polkes, spokeswoman for Cruise and United Artists, said the production company does not comment on "pending or threatened legal matters."
"To date, no lawsuits have been filed against United Artists or Mr. Cruise, nor have any allegations been made of any involvement of Mr. Cruise in this incident," the statement read. "All press reports and comments to the press stating otherwise and designed to generate sensational headlines are false."
The extras were hired by Achte Babelsberg Film GmbH, a sister company of Studio Babelsberg. Woebcken said there was a thorough investigation of the incident and, a week later, the legal department sent a letter to the extras' attorney to begin the negotiation process for settlement.
The letter said the vehicle was inspected by authorities and was in full working order; the problem, according to the letter, was an operator error of the door locking mechanism.
"Please tell us what injuries your client suffered, with necessary evidence from a doctor. We would then make proposals for compensation," the letter from Babelsberg said.
They received no response, Woebcken said.
Ariane Bluttner, the Berlin-based attorney for the actors, said they answered some inquiries from Babelsberg lawyers but received no offers of compensation. Bluttner said Tom Cruise and United Artists must be responsible for the actions of its contractors.
"Mr. Cruise, Ms. Wagner and United Artists Entertainment did not exercise reasonable care to select a reasonably competent, experienced, careful and properly equipped contractor," Bluttner wrote in an e-mail Thursday.
Woebcken criticized the extras and Bluttner for going directly to United Artists, calling it a publicity stunt, and said his company's legal department would handle any claims. Instead, Woebcken said they should have approached Achte Babelsberg, then Babelsberg Film GmbH, then Studio Babelsberg.
"In America, these things happen," he said, referring to the $11 million demand. "You have a different system in Germany. If you lose an arm, it's not worth a million dollars. This (is) a broken rib."
LOS ANGELES (AP) — David Duchovny has entered a rehabilitation facility for sex addiction. In a statement released Thursday by his lawyer, Stanton Stein, the actor said he did so voluntarily, adding: "I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family."The actor's publicist, Flo Grace, confirmed the rehab report, which first appeared on People.com.
She and Stein both declined to elaborate further.
Duchovny, 48, plays a sex-obsessed character on the Showtime series "Californication," which earned Emmy nominations for casting and cinematography. The show's second season begins Sept. 28. Showtime had no comment Thursday.
The actor appeared in the film "The X Files: I Want to Believe" earlier this summer. He has been married to actress Tea Leoni since 1997. They have two childre
NEW YORK - No matter what your taste, there's probably a Madonna for you The pop star, who is turning 50 Saturday, is one of fashion's great chameleons. She's been a punk princess and lady of the manor. She has channeled Marilyn Monroe, Eva Peron and a geisha.
The whole underwear-as-outerwear trend? That came from Madonna. Not to mention those '80s blondes who proudly showed their roots while wearing lace gloves and lots of chains. And would Kabbalah and yoga as lifestyle trends be where they are today without her?
"She's become an adjective. Friends will go shopping with each other and say, `It's so Madonna.' That's what you want in fashion," says stylist and TV commentator Robert Verdi.
Lately Madonna has mostly been spotted in workout gear, perhaps in preparation for her "Sticky & Sweet" world tour that will be partially outfitted by Givenchy. Designer Riccardo Tisci has worked up two outfits: a frock coat in black stretch satin and a long cape worn over a black dress embellished with colored ribbons — for a Gypsy-inspired outfit.
It's hard to say if the Gypsy look will start another trend. The cone-front corset Jean Paul Gaultier created for her Blond Ambition tour in 1990 didn't fully catch on with the masses.
But whether her looks are influential or merely memorable, Madonna always finds a way to connect with people and she never wears a look long enough for it to become stale, observes Verdi. If the disco revival look of her "Hung Up" era in 2005 clicked with him, her cowgirl-hat days in 2000 spoke to someone else.
"I don't love all her looks but can appreciate them all," he says. "She's always operated from a position that's a good hybrid of contemporary pop culture — the psyche of the nation — but also an artistic slant and art always pushes the envelope."
NEW YORK - Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty say they were nervous about reuniting for the new incarnation of "Beverly Hills, 90210."
The actresses feuded on and off the set of the 1990s cultural phenomenon, and Doherty left the series in 1994 following a rocky stretch during which she clashed with the cast and producers and showed up late for work.
Garth, 36, and Doherty, 37, hadn't spoken in years before filming their first scene together in the "90210" update, debuting Tuesday on the CW network. In this version, the drama centers on a new crop of West Beverly High School students.
"There had been so much buildup," Garth told Entertainment Weekly magazine, which features a joint interview with the actresses in its Sept. 5 issue. "Everyone was asking me before what it was going to be like. I was like, `I don't know. I haven't talked to her in 10 or 15 years.' I had that tension and I started to let it get to me. Is she going to be nice? Is it going to be a bad environment? But when I saw her everything was fine."
Doherty said "there were nerves going in," but she aimed to start fresh and move forward.
"I think when you're 18, your personalities conflict, then you meet up 10 or 15 years later, and the playing ground is totally different and you're fine," she said.
Doherty said she has no regrets about leaving the first "90210," which ran from 1990 to 2000 on the Fox network.
"It let me find a little bit of peace and discover who I was as a person," she said. "Not the person who the press made me out to be because I'd had a few bad experiences in my personal life, and I was struggling to figure out a bad husband or a bad boyfriend and I was doing it under the spotlight, so I wasn't reacting well to any of it."
Doherty said she and Garth "never punched each other," despite a passage in former castmate Tori Spelling's memoir "sTORI Telling" that alleges the two got into a fistfight.
"I don't think we ever hit each other. ... Scratching? I'm not going to deny that," said Garth.
The actresses' characters have matured: Garth's Kelly Taylor is a single mom and guidance counselor at West Beverly High, while Doherty's Brenda Walsh returns in a four-episode stint as a successful actress who encourages Taylor to date a cute English teacher. She even offers to babysit Kelly's 4-year-old son.
"All those people who wrote the `I Hate Brenda' newsletter are going to get mad at me now, like `Why are you leaving your child with Brenda?" Garth said.
"Hopefully those people have grown up," Doherty replied, to which Garth added: "I doubt it."
___
NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC Universal approved an advertisement by T. Boone Pickens entitled "Iran" which questions U.S. dependence on foreign oil, after the oil tycoon complained that the network had rejected it. Pickens said in a statement earlier on Wednesday that the video commercial has been cleared by every U.S. television network except for NBC Universal and called on the unit of General Electric Co to reconsider its rejection.
In the 15-second ad entitled "Iran," Pickens says: "Get this one, Iran is changing its cars to run on natural gas and we're not doing a thing here."
"They're doing this to use less oil and sell it for a $120 a barrel. We can switch our cars to natural gas and stop sending our dollars to foreign countries," says Pickens, a billionaire oil investor who funded the "Swift Boat" attacks on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004.
NBC Universal said it has now cleared all eight versions of the advertisement, and that Pickens released his statement prematurely.
Pickens, a frequent commentator on NBC Universal's cable business channel, CNBC, has said that the ad aimed to educate the public.
(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Andre Grenon)
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Two Disney DVD releases with tween appeal, "Camp Rock" and "Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert," debuted at Nos. 1 and 3, respectively, on the national home video sales chart for the week ended August 24. Sandwiched between was Fox's "Street Kings," which overcame a box-office gross of just $26.4 million to debut at No. 2 on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart -- and No. 1 on Home Media Magazine's video rental chart.
The cop thriller handily beat Sony's horror remake "Prom Night," which, reaped $43.9 million in theaters and bowed at No. 7 on the sales chart and No. 2 on the rental chart.
For the first time in recent memory, the eight top-selling videos were all new releases. Universal scored another direct-to-video success story with the action sequel "The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior," which debuted at No. 4 and sold more than 700,000 copies during its first week in stores, according to the studio.
Paramount's Season 2 set of the Showtime crime-thriller series "Dexter" debuted at No. 5, Universal's Season 4 set of "House" entered the chart at No. 6, and Warner's first-season set of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" bowed at No. 8.
On the Blu-ray Disc sales chart, "Street Kings" debuted at No. 1, with "Connor" bowing at No. 2 and "Scorpion King 2" entering the list at No. 3.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Effective today at 2 p.m. ET, the Warner Bros. Television Group will officially launch TheWB.com, a video-on-demand destination for encore episodes of Angel, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5, Everwood, Firefly, Friends, Gilmore Girls, In Living Color, The Loop, MADtv, The O.C., One Tree Hill, Roswell, Smallville and Veronica Mars
The WB.com will also feature original and acquired series, including Blue Water High, A Boy Wearing Makeup and Whatever Hollywood, which all debut today, and Sorority Fever, a mystery/drama about sororities from director/producer McG, which kicks-off on Sept. 8. Future product will include an untitled Josh Schwartz Music Project; Rich Girl, Poor Girl, from the creator of Laguna Beach; Exposed from McG; High Drama: Against All Oz, which focuses on a big budget high school musical; the action/horror themed Chadam; Downers Grove; and Joni & Susanna, the story of two friends in their 20s. TheWB.com will also feature state-of-the-art community and social networking tools.
-Meet the Browns on TBS:
TBS, the house of sitcom hits, has ordered 10 episodes of a new sitcom from Tyler Perry called Meet the Browns. Spun-off from the movie and play, David Mann will reprise his role as Leroy Brown, who is about to inherit a dilapidated house from his late father. It premieres in January 2009.
-- Marc Berman
Nielsen Media Research is reporting the following overall national rating results for day one of the Democratic National Convention:
All Households: 17.11 million
White Households: 12.75 million
African American Households: 3.28 million
Hispanic Households: 869,029
Total Viewers: 22.30 million
Persons 18-49: 7.68 million
Persons 18-34: 3.16 million
Persons 55+: 10.08 million
Persons 12-17: 417,496
---------------
-Dear Prudence Scores on Hallmark Channel:
Hallmark Channel's latest original movie, Dear Prudence, finished Saturday, Aug. 23 as the highest-rated ad-supported cable movie of the day, with 2.7 million total viewers. Comparably, that placed the cable network fourth overall for the day in prime-time among all ad-supported cable networks.
-National Ratings in Syndication – Week of August 11, 2008:
What follows are the top 10 rated programs in syndication based on households for the week of August 11, 2008, followed by any highlights of note:
Wheel of Fortune (CBS Television Distribution): 6.0 rating
Jeopardy (CBS): 5.2
Judge Judy (CBS): 4.3
Two and a Half Men (Warner Bros.): 4.2
Oprah (CBS): 3.9
Family Guy (Twentieth): 3.7
Entertainment Tonight (CBS): 3.6
Dr. Phil (CBS): 3.2
CSI: Miami (CBS): 3.1
Seinfeld (Sony Pictures Television): 3.0
-Oprah extended its winning streak in talk to 485 straight weeks, with a 22 percent advantage over its nearest competitor.
-Jeopardy was the only game show to grow from one year earlier, with an increase of two percent in households.
-Two and a Half Men led the off-network sitcom category for the 43rd consecutive week in households (without the benefit of a cable run), and was first in adults 25-54 (2.6), women 18-49 (2.4, tie), women 25-54 (2.8) and men 25-54.
-Warner Bros.' TMZ dominated the magazine category for the 19th straight week in women 18-34 (1.1, tie), adults 18-34 (1.0) and men 18-34 (0.9).
Source: Nielsen Media Research data
-- Marc Berman
-Countdown to the Start of the New Season:
26 days
----------
-Yesterday's Winners:
America's Got Talent (NBC)
-Yesterday's Losers (excluding repeats):
Wanna Bet (ABC)
-Ratings Breakdown:
Once again, this was far from an Olympic-sized performance. But NBC's winning streak continued, with an advantage last night over second-place Fox of a healthy 1.8 rating points. Third overall in the Tuesday metered markets was CBS, followed by ABC and, of course, the CW. Next week at this time I will have the initial results for 90210!
A two-hour edition of summer hit America's Got Talent on NBC was the top-rated show of the evening, with a 6.9 rating/11 share in the overnights from 8-10 p.m. Here is the half-hour breakdown:
America's Got Talent (NBC)
8:00 p.m. 6.2/10 (#1)
8:30 p.m. 6.8/11 (#1)
9:00 p.m. 7.3/11 (#1)
9:30 p.m. 7.5/11 (#1)
Second in the 8 p.m. hour was a repeat of CBS' NCIS at a 5.2/ 9. Next was ABC's Wipeout (4.1/ 7), which could still win the hour among adults 18-49 despite a below-average performance, followed by a repeat of Fox's House (3.5/ 6), and a repeat of Smallville on the CW (1.7/ 3).
Second in the overnights from 9-10 p.m. behind the concluding hour of NBC's expanded America's Got Talent was another repeat of Fox's House, at a 5.3/ 8. Next was CBS' Big Brother 10 (3.9/ 6), ABC dud Wanna Bet (2.8/ 5), and a repeat of the CW's Reaper (1.6/ 3), which is very compatible with Smallville. Why Dan on Big Brother did not just put up Ollie last night is beyond me? And why mess with the veto meeting with all that nonsense? If anything, Dan just made himself a major target. If Ollie wins POV on Thursday (a double elimination night), Dan could be history.
Night two of the Democratic Convention fared as follows in the overnights at 10 p.m.:
NBC: 4.5/ 7
ABC: 3.4/ 6
CBS: 2.4/ 4
Keep in mind, of course, that results for any live event are always approximate.
Tuesday 8/26/08
HH
Rtg/Shr
NBC 6.1/10
Fox 4.3/ 7
CBS 3.8/ 6
ABC 3.4/ 5
CW 1.7/ 3
Source: Nielsen Media Research data
-- Marc Berman
The Venice Film Festival opened Wednesday night with the premiere of the Coen brothers' dark comedy "Burn After Reading," giving a flash of Hollywood glamour to a festival lineup with a definite art house feel.
The 21 films competing for the coveted Golden Lion at the festival, which runs through Sept. 6, will provide a snapshot of world cinema, with entries from Ethiopia, Turkey, Algeria and a Brazilian-Chinese production.
While the lineup gives the impression of being light on celebrity-driven Hollywood fare due both to the impact of last year's writers' strike and a late selection process for Cannes' springtime festival festival director Marco Mueller said U.S. films are well represented.
"This is the second time and it is a record for the history of the festival we have five American films in competition," Mueller said, emphasizing that selections aren't based on any national criteria. "The festival is not an atlas of nations."
"Burn After Reading," starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, is among another five American films being shown out of competition.
The first U.S. film vying for the Golden Lion is Guillermo Arriaga's "The Burning Plain," starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger as a mother and daughter trying to forge a bond. The writer of "21 Grams" is making his debut as director.
Darren Aronofsky will present "The Wrestler" starring Mickey Rourke as a wrestler forced into retirement who strikes up a romance with an aging stripper played by Marisa Tomei. Jonathan Demme will be showing his "Rachel Getting Married" starring Anne Hathaway as a daughter whose return home for her sister's wedding brings out old tensions.
Kathryn Bigelow is bringing "The Hurt Locker," an Iraq war drama portraying soldiers who defuse bombs in the heat of war. Also among the U.S. entries is Iranian-born Amir Naderi's "Vegas: Based on a True Story," about the family life of a compulsive gambler.
Pitt picked up an award Wednesday that he won last year the best actor's prize for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
"You can run but you can't hide," Pitt joked as he accepted the award during the opening ceremony. "It was an honor to receive this last year and it remains an honor to accept this this year."
German filmmaker Wim Wenders, whose credits include "Paris, Texas" and "Buena Vista Social Club," is heading this year's jury.
"We will see 21 films and I hope and I have a lot of confidence in Marco that we will see 21 films that will give us the state of art of what is cinema today," Wenders said.
"Burn After Reading" is Clooney's third film with the Coen brothers completing what he called "his trilogy of idiots" after "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Intolerable Cruelty."
Pitt and McDormand play a pair of hapless gym employees who get in way over their heads when the memoirs of a failed CIA analyst, played by John Malkovich, fall into their hands and they try to peddle them as classified intelligence. Clooney plays a hypochondriac philanderer having an affair with the CIA analyst's disappointed wife, played by Swinton.
"We started writing the movie as kind of an exercise, thinking of what kind of parts these actors might play, what kind of story they might inhabit," Ethan Coen told a news conference.
The film is set within a spy story for no other reason than "we hadn't done one before," Joel Coen told reporters.
"It could have been a dog movie or an outer space movie. We just kind of landed on a spy movie," he said.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Lindsay Lohan hasn't talked to her father, Michael Lohan, for some time, and the actress has turned to Access Hollywood to speak out against her big-mouthed dad.
Lindsay says she's tired of Michael publicly commenting on her mom Dina, sister Ali, and friend Samantha Ronson, and finds it unfortunate that he turns to the media to get attention.
"He's out of control," she told Access from the set of "Ugly Betty," where she's filming several guest appearances for the ABC show's third season.
Lindsay Lohan Denies Prior Female Relationship - Play it Now
"I want him to stop hurting and talking to the media about the people I love," she said.
In an interview with E! on Tuesday, Michael said Samantha was "using" his daughter after hearing rumors that the DJ might be writing a tell-all book.
"I've shut up about this long enough," Michael told E! "She's using my daughter. People never even knew who Samantha Ronson was until she met Lindsay. She was just some L.A. DJ. And now she's writing a book? I am at wit's end with this stuff. This is not in Lindsay's best interest."
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rap music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was arrested on charges of assault and domestic violence on Wednesday after punching his girlfriend and pulling a knife on her during an argument, Las Vegas police said.
Knight, 43, co-founder of the rap label Death Row Records, also was charged with two drug offenses when he was found to be in possession of ecstasy and the prescription narcotic Hydrocodone, police said in a statement.
Police said Knight's girlfriend of three years, who was not identified in the statement, told officers that Knight punched her in the head during an argument while he was driving with her in an automobile.
In an effort to escape, the girlfriend grabbed the steering wheel causing the vehicle to hit a curb and come to an abrupt stop, then she fled with Knight in pursuit, police said.
When officers arrived on the scene, responding to a domestic violence call, they found Knight standing over the woman holding a knife, according to police.
A police spokesman, Jay Rivera, said the woman was not stabbed, but added, "Had it not been for that citizen calling, who knows what would have happened?"
Knight was arrested without incident and booked into the Clark County Detention Center, while his girlfriend was taken to a nearby hospital, police said.
Knight's lawyer, Richard Schonfeld, said he expected his client to post bail, which was set at $19,000, after the mandatory 12-hour holding period for domestic violence cases.
"The only comment we can make is we're gathering all the facts, and we'll be representing him in the case," he added.
Knight, who helped promote such rap stars as Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur in the 1990s, has seen his career overshadowed by numerous run-ins with the law over the years.
He was sent to prison in October 1996 for violating his probation on a previous assault case by allegedly kicking a man during a scuffle at a Las Vegas hotel.
The scuffle took place hours before Shakur was gunned down in September 1996 in a drive-by shooting. Knight was at the wheel of the car in which Shakur was fatally shot and was slightly wounded himself.
Months later, rap artist Christopher Wallace, who was known as Notorious B.I.G. and signed to a rival record label, was shot to death in Los Angeles.
Knight, who was incarcerated at the time, was named by police a few years later as a suspect in the Wallace slaying but was never charged. Both rap murders remain unsolved.
Knight was released from prison in April 2001. The following year a federal racketeering probe of Knight and his record label, which stemmed from allegations of murder, drug trafficking, money laundering and gun running, was closed with the company pleading guilty to misdemeanor tax charges.
In 2006, Knight and Death Row Records filed for bankruptcy protection as he faced the prospect of losing control of his label in a $107 million civil court judgment. But the sale of the label's music assets and Knight's publishing rights fell through last month.
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Actor/director Ben Stiller has been selected as this year's honoree for the Museum of the Moving Image's 24th annual black-tie salute. The event, which benefit's MOMI's education programs, is scheduled for November 12 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York. Stiller's colleagues are expected to pay tribute and present clips from his film career.
"Ben Stiller is one of the great talents of American entertainment: a memorable actor, an accomplished director and writer, an Emmy Award winner and an innovative producer," MOMI director Rochelle Slovin said.
Tom Cruise, Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" co-star, was last year's honoree.
ET confirms that Amanda Bynes was in a minor car accident in Los Angeles and no serious injuries occurred.
The LAPD said Bynes was driving her car around 3:00 p.m. yesterday when she made a left hand turn and collided with another vehicle. Police said no citations were given and no alcohol or drugs were involved in the crash.
Bynes played Penny Pingleton in 2007's 'Hairspray,' and also appeared in the TV series "What I Like About You."
VENICE, Italy - George Clooney hosted a charity event Tuesday night to raise money for victims in Darfur.Clooney, who's in Venice for the premiere Wednesday at the Venice Film Festival of the Coen brothers' film "Burn After Reading," swept past reporters as he arrived for the fundraiser for his Not On Our Watch charity.
The event was expected to raise $2 million, said Manuele Malenotti, the executive director of the Italian clothing company Belstaff, which sponsored the event.
Not On Our Watch has raised more than $7 million to help victims both of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan and the cyclone in Myanmar, according to executive director Alex Wagner.
The charity, which was started last year by Clooney, Brad Pitt and some of their "Ocean's Thirteen" colleagues, uses their celebrity appeal to bring attention to human rights abuses, but it isn't so easy to get even two of the founders together because of filming and family demands, Wagner conceded.
Pitt, who arrived in Venice earlier with sons Maddox and Pax, was expected at the event, but hadn't arrived by the time cocktail hour was over. He also appear in the Coen brothers' film.
"Scheduling is very difficult. Two of them happened to be in Venice at the same time because of the 'Burn After Reading' premiere ... so there was a brainstorming session," Wagner said of the planned joint appearance.
Inside, Clooney was discussing the issues and where the charity puts its money at the fundraising dinner on Venice's Giudecca island, where 200 industry insiders and Italian VIPs were slated to attend, Wagner said.
One recent grant by the group was $500,000 in March to keep helicopters and airplanes flying aid into Darfur region of Sudan — topping off a $1 million donation a year earlier for the same program.
"We sent out a press release one day saying we were on the verge of closing it down and the next day we had $500,000," said Bettina Luescher, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program at U.N. headquarters in New York. "They shine the light on the real emergencies and step up where we really need help."
Without that money, Luescher said, the World Food Program had been on the verge of shutting down the air service to Darfur, which brings 3,000 aid workers a month to the stricken region. The U.N. food charity fed 3.3 million people there last month.
The air service is critical given deteriorating security, which makes road convoys vulnerable. Nearly 100 World Food Program food trucks have been hijacked this year.
Clooney has spoken for several years about the crisis in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million people displaced in three years of fighting between African rebels and government troops allied with Arab militia known as the janjaweed.
He went on a U.N. technical mission including Darfur and neighboring Chad in January, sharing his impressions with reporters upon his return to draw attention to the crisis.
LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears won't perform on this year's MTV Video Music Awards, according to her manager. "Contrary to media reports, Britney was never slated to perform on this year's VMAs," Larry Rudolph, Spears' manager at Jive Records, said in a statement. "She's in the middle of recording her next album, which is going amazingly well, and her focus remains on the studio."
Spears' "Gimme More" comeback performance during last year's VMAs was one of the most-talked-about moments of 2007. The tabloid queen is currently appearing in spots promoting this year's ceremony.
In June, MTV Networks Music Group President Van Toffler said the network wasn't ruling out giving viewers another dose of Spears at the VMAs. MTV later confirmed they were in talks to have Spears appear in some capacity. The rebounding pop queen is nominated for video of the year for "Piece of Me."
This VMAs will air live Sept. 7 from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. Previously announced award show performers include Kid Rock, Lil Wayne, Pink, Rihanna, Paramore, T.I. and the Jonas Brothers.
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for Aug. 18-24. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (X) "Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony," NBC, 27.83 million viewers.
2. (X) "Summer Olympics Tuesday," NBC, 26.63 million viewers.
3. (X) "Summer Olympics Monday," NBC, 26.37 million viewers.
4. (X) "Summer Olympics Wednesday," NBC, 24.76 million viewers.
5. (X) "Summer Olympics Thursday," NBC, 22.44 million viewers.
6. (X) "Beijing Closing Party," NBC, 20.58 million viewers.
7. (X) "Summer Olympics Friday," NBC, 17.88 million viewers.
8. (X) "Summer Olympics Saturday," NBC, 16.76 million viewers.
9. (16) "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 8.16 million viewers.
10. (15) "NCIS," CBS, 7.61 million viewers.
11. (10) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 7.29 million viewers.
12. (88) "Flashpoint," CBS, 7.21 million viewers.
13. (22) "60 Minutes," CBS, 6.70 million viewers.
14. (17) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 6.38 million viewers.
15. (124) "Big Brother 10" (Thursday), CBS, 6.17 million viewers.
16. (109) "Big Brother 10" (Tuesday), CBS, 6.12 million viewers.
17. (29) "CSI: NY," CBS, 6.06 million viewers.
18. (124) "Big Brother 10" (Sunday), CBS, 6.04 million viewers.
19. (22) "Criminal Minds," CBS, 5.92 million viewers.
20. (175) "Cold Case," CBS, 5.85 million viewers.
___
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Make that "Two and a Half Men," three daughters and a baby on the way for Charlie Sheen.
The actor is expecting a child with wife Brooke Mueller, Sheen announced Monday in a statement.
"Brooke and I are thrilled!" the star of the CBS hit "Two and a Half Men" wrote. "She's the best stepmom Sam, Lola and Cassandra could ever hope for. Seeing her love and affection with those three, I know she'll be an amazing mom. Unless I bat 100 percent, perhaps a boy awaits us."
Sheen has three daughters: 25-year-old Cassandra Jade Estevez, whose mother is Sheen's former girlfriend Paula Profit, and two girls with ex-wife Denise Richards. Sheen and Richards are still embroiled in a bitter custody battle over 3-year-old Sam and 2-year-old Lola.
Sheen and Mueller, a real estate investor, tied the knot in late May.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - ABC has renewed last season's reality success "Here Come the Newlyweds" for a second round. The one-hour romantic-comedy series will return midseason. On the show, nine recently married couples compete for hundreds of thousands of dollars to jump-start their new lives together.
ABC has increased the series order from last season's six episodes to eight. Once again, comic Pat Bullard hosts.
The pickup has long been expected. Driven by a strong lead-in from "Oprah's Big Give," "Newlyweds" ranked No. 1 in its Sunday 10 p.m. period in total viewers (averaging 8.1 million) and adults 18 to 49 (3.3/9). ("Big Give" wasn't renewed after producer/host Oprah Winfrey declined to produce another season).
(Reuters) - Digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc is set to enter into an agreement with Time Warner's Entertainment Weekly that will allow its users to automatically record shows suggested by the magazine's staff, the Wall Street Journal said. TiVo expects to make the announcement on Wednesday, the paper said.
The alliance is part of a push by TiVo to differentiate itself from digital video recorders offered by cable companies, which have managed to find a bigger audience.
The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed, the paper said
LOS ANGELES - Nicollette Sheridan and Michael Bolton have ended their engagement The split was amicable, said Nicole Perna, a publicist for the pair.
The 44-year-old actress and 55-year-old singer have been engaged since March 2006. They first started dating in 1992 and spent five years together, Perna said, then rekindled their romance in 2005.
Sheridan plays Edie Britt on ABC's "Desperate Housewives." Bolton won Grammy awards in 1989 and 1991 for male pop vocal performance.
The couple's split was first reported by People.com.
SYDNEY, Australia - The immigration department said Wednesday it was conducting a character assessment of Snoop Dogg, including his criminal history, as Australia considers whether to grant the rapper a visa for a concert tour later this year.
A department spokesman said reports the visa had already been granted were false.
He said the rapper, whose birth name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr., applied for a visa in July and the department carried out a preliminary assessment. Snoop Dogg and fellow hip-hop star Ice Cube plan an Australian concert tour in October.
"The department has now decided to do a full assessment of the character of Mr. Broadus, and the department has begun this assessment," the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity as required by the department.
He said Snoop Dogg had been notified of the further assessment.
The spokesman said the rapper has visited Australia three times: in 1998, 2006 and 2007, without incident, though he did overstay his visa by two days on the last visit.
Snoop Dogg withdrew his application for a visa to Australia last year when he failed to pass the character requirements after pleading no contest to gun and drug charges in the United States.
NEW YORK - It was only her first day as an "American Idol" judge, but already Kara DioGuardi seemed part of the dysfunctional family.
DioGuardi, the freshly-installed fourth "Idol" critic, joined Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson in a public show of solidarity Tuesday afternoon as the quartet entered a Chelsea Piers building on Manhattan's west side for a round of season eight auditions.
They walked a red carpet amid a media circus aimed at getting the first photo opportunity of DioGuardi with her new co-workers. Cowell summed up the thinking behind adding the 37-year-old singer-songwriter to the panel.
"It's like, you know, having dinner with three people for seven years, and getting quite bored of each other," Cowell told reporters. "So it's having a fourth person, new opinion, I think it's gonna be interesting."
"I think it's gonna make it sexier," said Jackson, chiming in.
DioGuardi's songs have been recorded by Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Celine Dion, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood and Pink, among others. Her recent Top 40 hits include Stefani's "Rich Girl," Clarkson's "Walk Away" and Dion's "Taking Chances."
Fox announced DioGuardi's new gig Monday morning.
"Kara has a good reputation of A, having hits; and B, having an opinion. And that's a good combination," Cowell said, adding, matter-of-factly: "And she's cute."
"You think I'm cute?" DioGuardi replied (as if she didn't know it already). "Oh, good."
A smiling Abdul said she was excited to have another woman at the judges' table. She had expressed uncertainty about the new format in a radio interview the day before, telling Phoenix's 104.7 KISS-FM that she was "concerned about the audience and acceptance. Time will tell. We'll see."
As it happens, Abdul and DioGuardi are longtime friends. They co-wrote the dance song "Spinning Around" for Kylie Minogue in 2000.
"I know Kara, and she speaks her mind — so she will be speaking her mind," Abdul said of DioGuardi's judging technique.
"That's a nice way of saying she's bitchy," Cowell sniped, eliciting a "Whooooooooah!" from Jackson.
"Then what are you if I'm bitchy?" DioGuardi said.
"Sincere," Cowell responded.
"I'm sincere too," she said.
Cowell said they hadn't fully decided how ties will be broken in the audition process. In past seasons, two out of three judges had to agree to advance aspiring pop stars to the Hollywood round.
He joked that the foursome held a slumber party to bond with the rookie.
"We had a picnic last night in the bedroom," he said. "I wore pajamas, the girls wore negligees and we kind of broke the ice."
What will be the seating order on the panel?
"I'm gonna sit between the two girls," Cowell said.
"I'm gonna sit between the two girls as well," Jackson replied.
And how will the time-starved show fit in FOUR judges' opinions?
"Paula will have to speak less," said Cowell, unable to resist another swipe at his favorite target.
___
BRUSSELS, Belgium/LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Although Brussels' Herge Studios seems to think otherwise, Steven Spielberg remains committed to directing the first in a planned "Tintin" trilogy for DreamWorks.
It will be his next directing effort after this summer's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which has grossed $780 million worldwide.
Herge Studios, which holds the rights to the iconic comic strip character, said Tuesday via a spokesman that Peter Jackson was moving into the director's chair for the first film. But both Jackson's and Spielberg's representatives say that Jackson will direct the sequel and serve as a producer on the first film.
In the meantime, Jackson will finish postproduction on "The Lovely Bones" for DreamWorks/Paramount before moving on to co-write the two "Hobbit" movies for New Line and MGM.
The first "Tintin" feature will be based on two books, "The Secret of the Unicorn" and "Red Rackham's Treasure," written by Tintin creator Herge -- the pen name of Belgian artist Georges Remi -- between 1942 and 1944.
The film, scripted by Stephen Moffat, a writer on the British sci-fi series "Doctor Who," will be animated with motion-capture technology. It stars 18-year-old Thomas Sangster as the title character and Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" triology, as Tintin's friend Captain Haddock.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Warner Bros. will produce and distribute the French-language Audrey Tautou-starring biopic "Coco Before Chanel."
House of Chanel art director Karl Lagerfeld has been hired to supervise re-creations of the legendary designer's attire for the film. Anne Fontaine's adaptation of Edmonde Charles-Roux's biography "L'irreguliere" will focus on Chanel's early years.
Warner Bros. International is joining Haut et Court, Cine-@, Warner Bros. Entertainment France and Films Distribution as a producer on the feature.
Warner Bros. plans to release the film domestically in 2009. Given the shuttering of its Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures divisions, "Chanel" will be one of the studio's first new tests in handling a specialty release.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
COLOGNE, Germany (Hollywood Reporter) - "Stromberg," the German adaptation of the BBC hit TV series "The Office," is being adapted as a feature film.
Christoph Maria Herbst will star as the incompetent boss of a small-time insurance office, the role that made him famous in Germany.
German comedy outfit Brainpool is producing the project, which is planned as the finale to the sitcom's fourth season. Writer and series co-creator Ralf Husmann will pen the script.
In its third season on Pro7, "Stromberg" already has run longer than its BBC predecessor, as has the U.S. version on NBC.
The German show has spawned a spinoff, "Beruhmt" (Famous), which follows the misadventures of office brown-noser Ernie. That series, which Husmann also is writing, will debut on Pro7 in 2009.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
