CBS Corp is exploring a possible entry into the movie business, with a view toward producing a handful of smaller-budget films annually, Chief Executive Les Moonves said on Wednesday.
“We are exploring it,” Moonves said at a PricewaterhouseCoopers media event in New York. “We’re not looking to do Superman.”
Moonves did not provide details on how CBS would set up a movie venture, whether through acquisition or building up its own properties.
But he said the television and radio broadcaster would be interested in producing six to eight movies a year on smaller budgets of US$20 million to US$30 million.
“We could get in in a small way, doing six to eight movies a year in a risk-free way,” Moonves said.
CBS, home to the tele-vision network of the same name, separated from corporate parent Viacom Inc. at the beginning of the year. Viacom retained the Paramount Pictures movie studios.
Hollywood writer/producer Aaron Spelling, who has helped create some of America’s most popular and beloved television shows, suffered a stroke in his home over the weekend and is recovering, his publicist said Wednesday.
Spelling, whose credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Starsky and Hutch and Charlie’s Angels, suffered a stroke on Sunday in his Los Angeles home.
“He is now at home resting with his wife under a doctor’s care,” Kevin Sasaki, Spelling’s publicist, said.
A filmmaker who made one of France’s biggest domestic box-office hits, The Choir, on Wednesday lost a court fight against several Internet companies he accused of promoting illegal downloading of movies.
Christophe Barratier had alleged that AOL France, Telecom Italia France, Neuf Telecom, Voyages, financial firm Finaref, and the state lottery company La Francaise des Jeux were complicit in the activity by putting illicit download sites on poster ads.
But the Paris court, while recognizing that such sites were illegal, refused to convict the companies, saying that Barratier’s claims “relied purely on hypotheses”.
It added: “No evidence shows their intention to commit the infraction they are accused of.”
Several of the companies themselves blamed the
presence of the offending sites on their posters on advertising management companies.
Barratier had been seeking a symbolic, rather than financial, court victory to make an “example” of the companies.
His movie The Choir, about a group of boys in a harsh boarding school who are transformed by a teacher who introduces them to singing. It generated more than US$8.5 million in ticket sales in France and was nominated for an Oscar last year.
Tom Cruise’s next mission may not be impossible, but it could be difficult: He wants free run of downtown Tokyo for a week to shoot action sequences for a future movie. “I’d like to shoot in Tokyo, if I could have downtown for a week. Just at night,” Cruise, in Tokyo for the premiere of
Mission: Impossible 3, told a news conference on Tuesday.
Piracy in China cost film makers US$2.7 billion last year, with
domestic firms shouldering more than half those losses, according to a study commissioned by a trade group representing the major Hollywood studios. China’s film industry lost about US$1.5 billion in revenue to piracy last year, while the major US studios lost US$565 million, according to data released on Monday by the Motion Picture Association, whose members include the studio units of Time Warner, Walt Disney Co and Viacom Inc.
Bollywood superstar Salman Khan and four other Indian film personalities were earlier this week charged with poaching endangered black buck during a movie shoot, a court official said.
Khan, who is out on bail after being convicted of shooting a gazelle in a separate case, was in court in this western Indian city to hear the fresh charges, the official said.
Charged with Khan were fellow stars Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Neelam Kothari and Tabu.
Khan, one of Bollywood’s most popular actors, was charged with shooting the black buck or
antelope while the others were booked for encouraging him during the film shoot eight years ago.
The 40-year-old Indian actor is no stranger to
controversy and faces charges of manslaughter over a road accident in 2002 that left one person dead and four others injured.
The actor has denied allegations that he was at the wheel, drunk and without a license, when his car ran over people sleeping on a sidewalk in western Mumbai, home to the country’s prolific Hindi-language film industry.
Just after 6am, I walked up to the ticket gate at Taipei Main Station and entered the Taiwan Railway platform without scanning any ticket; instead, I flashed the Sanrio Fun Rail pass on my phone to the gate worker and was admitted. I found my train and prepared to board. My destination? This very same station. I was embarking on a 13-hour journey on one of two round-the-island trains operated by ezTravel. They run each day, one counterclockwise around the island and one clockwise. They differ in a number of ways from an ordinary Taiwan Railway train and can make for
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the Taipei Times, adding that Taiwan may become more cautious in its dealings with South Korea going forward. Taipei has called on Seoul to correct its electronic entry system, which currently lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” warning that reciprocal measures may follow if the wording is not changed before March 31. As of yesterday,
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
On Thursday, former Taipei mayor and founder of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Seven others related to the case were also handed prison sentences, while two were found not guilty. It has been a bad week for the TPP. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) with suspicion of taking part in Beijing-directed election interference. Xu has strong links to the TPP, which once offered her a party list legislator nomination. Tuesday also
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