Queen Latifah pacts for talk show

There's another player in the post-Oprah syndie landscape: Queen Latifah. Flavor Unit Entertainment, Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television have pacted to produced a new daytime syndicated show hosted by Latifah and set tentatively for fall 2013. Latifah owns Flavor Unit with Shakim Compere; the shingle has produced pics including Latifah's own "Just Wright" and Paramount Christmastime pic "The Perfect Holiday" as well as TV series "Single Ladies" for VH1 and "Let's Stay Together" on BET. The show will be Overbrook's first TV project. Contact Sam Thielman at sam.thielman@variety.com

Video sub deficits knock Cablevision

Large NY-area cabler Cablevision Systems Friday saw earnings for your September quarter fall, revealing a loss of profits of 19,000 video clients in the earlier 3-month period partly offset by an uptick in voice and-speed Internet biz.Internet gain walked to $40 million from $112 million. Company reported greater programming, advertising and marketing costs additionally to some $16 million hit from Hurricane Irene inside the NY metro area in the finish of summer season.Revenue rose 8% close to $1.7 billion, including contributions from Bresnan, a far more compact cable operator acquired last December. Excluding Bresnan, Cablevision mentioned revenue might have been essentially flat.Cablevision's amounts stressed what Time Warner Cable outlined yesterday, a slippage of video subs to competition from telecom services like Verizon's Fios and possibly, although it's still beginning, nascent inroads by new video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu while others.The business had 3.626 million clients within the finish of Sept. The quantity of video clients dipped 19,000 to 3.264 within the quarter brought to June.Round the upside, the business added 17,000 new voice clients and 38,000 new high-speed data clients. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com

The Standouts Of Gaddafi Dying Coverage: Jon Stewart, Hillary Clinton & Matthew Perry

FRIDAY NOON UPDATE: Sadly,Rentrak can't download any grosses to date today, so there will not beany estimations based on noon earnings. FRIDAY 8:45 AM: That is 30% greater thanthe follow-up Paranormal Activity 2 whichearned $6.3M from 1,800 locations. It sets anew franchise better of $8 million in evening time business from 2,200 U.S. locationsovernight for Paranormal Activity 3. is 30%. Worldwide, Paranormal Activity 3 opened up up in France Wednesday and saw $521K opening gross which was +45% more than PA2, Australia Thursday which saw $516K or +14% before PA2, and virtually every foreign territory todaybesides The U . s . States.Russia’s $550K opening gross was 45% more than PA2. Vital is lowballing the threequel to gross no less than $35M in domestic box office. But PA2 made $40.6M its 2010 pre-Halloween weekend, then competitor Saw 3d first demonstrated the following Friday. PA3 does not have such rival this time around around around. So Hollywood is expecting a lot more money. Nonetheless, PA3 cost only $5M, making the lower-budget high-grossing franchise the gift that continues giving, just like a studio professional notifies me. (PA1 did $108M/$85M foreign, while PA2 did $85M inside the U.S. and $93M foreign.) Paranormal Activity 3s strong monitoring is showing wannasee not just with youthful males but furthermore with older moviegoers, and so the bloodless thriller should break Hollywoods 3-month-extended box office slump a couple of days ago. Not since Foxs Rise In The Planet In The Apes ($54.8M) on August fifth has there been a sizable grossing domestic opener beyond $30.1M (Disneys Lion King 3d). To work up global grosses, Vital took part in 20 round-the-world fan premieres in 8 nations getting a tournament good most Twitter activity. The winning urban centers incorporated Melbourne, Tel Aviv, London, Sao Paulo, NY, and Hollywoods Arclight, where thousands of fans switched out for gourmet food trucks and franchise star Katie Featherston.

Scarlett Johansson was too sexy for Fincher's Dragon Tattoo

Director David Fincher states Scarlett Johansson was too sexy to see Lisbeth Salander within the remake in the Girl While Using Dragon Tattoo."The main one factor with Scarlett is, you can't watch out for her to think about her clothes off," Fincher mentioned.To put that into context (and making it appear rather less strange), we feel Fincher was saying the smoothness must be boyish and vulnerable before she shows many other side.Let's try that again..."Look, we'd some amazing people. Scarlett Johansson was great. It absolutely was a great audition, I'm recommending. However the one factor with Scarlett is, you can't watch out for her to think about her clothes off," Fincher told Style."Salander needs to be like E.T.," he added. "In the event you put E.T. dolls out before anybody saw the film, they'd say, 'What is nothing squishy factor?' Well, you know what happens? When he hides beneath the table which he grabs the Reese's Pieces, you want him! It must finish up like this.InchOkay, he handled to obtain strange again.

REVIEW: Real Steel Is Movie Comfort Food, with Robot Boxers

In Real Steel Hugh Jackman plays a boxing promoter who’s forced to reconnect with his estranged son. But the boxers on which Jackman hangs his hopes aren’t human: Real Steel, which is based on a Richard Matheson short story, is set in the near future, when “robot boxing” is all the rage. Controlled by their handlers, these overgrown Rock’ Em Sock ‘Em Robots are sent into the ring to do the work real human athletes used to do, but not even these guys are always built to take a punch. Just like their primitive plastic forebears, their blocks get knocked off routinely. Real Steel, directed by Shawn Levy (with Steven Spielberg as one of the executive producers), is a big, expensive-looking entertainment masquerading as a modest, straightforward one, and sometimes the illusion works. Jackman’s Charlie Kenton is a down-and-out former boxer looking for his next big metallic meal ticket. Instead, he gets temporary custody of the son he seems to have forgotten he had, 11-year-old Max (Dakota Goyo), whose mother has just died in an accident. Charlie wants nothing to do with Max, and basically sells him off to the rich husband of Max’s aunt (played by a frosty Hope Davis, in the dragon-mom role), who wants custody. But one of the intricacies of the deal is that Charlie must first spend the summer with Max. And although the two don’t get along too famously at first, their relationship and their fortunes turn around when they stumble upon an early — circa 2016 — robot boxer that’s been relegated to the scrap heap but that still has plenty of fight left in him. Atom, as that robot is called, has a measure of charm compared with his newer, slicker counterparts. His eyes glow blue from behind his flat, fencer’s mask face, allowing him a degree of expressiveness. He also has a special characteristic built right in: He’s a sympathetic robot, able and willing to absorb and imitate any action a human makes. The predictability of Real Steel — the fact that we know father and son will gradually be drawn closer, and that Atom will become a hero in his own idiosyncratic robot way — is less a liability than a kind of comfort food. This is one of those futuristic pictures that, the presence of robots aside, doesn’t look all that futuristic: The characters’ outfits have that retro-rugged gray-brown vibe of clothes you can find hanging on the sale rack at Diesel. (The exception are the limp, drapey T-shirts worn by Evangeline Lily as robot mechanic, and Jackman’s love interest, Bailey; she gets the Rick Owens stuff that you have to go to Barneys to get.) Shot by Mauro Fiore, the picture manages to look crisp and glossy even in its semi-drabness. And the action sequences are fairly clean and reasonably exciting — at their best, they capture the aura of watching a real-life fight, where athletic artistry coupled with the risk of real pain keep you wanting to watch, even when you have the impulse to turn away. Jackman is predictably raffish and swaggering — watching him is painless, though the role doesn’t ask a lot of him emotionally. Goyo’s Max is a scrappy little wiseacre, but you warm up to him: His role in the proceedings is to see value in a thrown-away robot — as a thrown-away kid, he can sure identify — and he slips into the role comfortably. Still, there’s something disappointingly anonymous about Real Steel. (The screenplay is by John Gatins, working from a story by Dan Gilroy and Jeremy Leven, inspired by Matheson.) It goes through all the motions, properly and efficiently, and yet it’s missing some core warmth. Watching Real Steel, I kept thinking of Brad Bird’s retro-modern cartoon The Iron Giant, and of how that picture humanized a metal alien so effortlessly. Atom is appealing enough, but the movie conditions us to care for him more than it gives us reason to. In the end, we just give in, because that’s what the movie expects of us. But even within that context, a few sequences stand out: When Max realizes Atom can imitate human movement, he urges Charlie to train with him, and the two set up an impromptu training ground in front of an old motel, right-jabbing and uppercutting in unison. The moment is captured in wide shot and carefully cut, so we can take the measure of both of these bodies, the mechanical one and its flesh-and-blood counterpart, in all their glory. Sugar Ray Leonard consulted on Real Steel, and though I’m not sure you can see evidence of that awesome street cred throughout most of the movie, it certainly shines through here. As Jackman and Atom work through their moves, simpatico, they present the brief illusion that something might actually be at stake here. And that muscle might have more in common with motherboards than we ever would have thought.

Judge Keeps Filmmakers' 'Sabotage' Suit Against Weinstein Co. (Exclusive)

Rainmaker Entertainment/The Weinstein Co."Steer Clear Of The WorldInch Most likely probably the most vicious law suits in entertainment this year can be a $50 million claim filed in March by two filmmakers who accuse The Weinstein Company ofbotching therelease ofcomputer-animated movieEscape in the World.our editor recommends'The King's Speech': Harvey Weinstein Defends PG-13 Theatrical Version The suit has some everything --Harvey and Bob Weinstein are classified as "an authentic existence version of Bialystock & Blossom" and purported to possess paid out $500,000 in "hush money" to keep thedispute quiet round the eve in the Academy awards The filmmakers are labeled "vindictive Hollywood talent" whose complaint includes a "plethora of irrelevancies and unmanageable rantings" the Weinsteins' famous attorney, David Boies, even can get hit with charges of dishonest behavior and possible malpractice. The emotions have recently met a awesome-blooded NY condition judge, who on Wednesday, rejected to dismiss some claims, transfer the problem, or disqualify Boies within the role as lawyer for that organization. The litigants inside the situation arewriter/directorTony Leechand film producerBrian Inerfeld, who've been during the time of makingEscape in the World, a great alien prison break from Area 51. Leech and Inerfeld had labored while using Weinsteins before onthe 2005 hitHoodwinked, and expected their follow-up to become huge success. The Two signed a dealwhereby they were to obtain a the least 20% ofEscape's modified gross profit, they thought might be worth close to $50 million with the spine finish participation alone. STORY: The Weinstein Co. Launches New Label Butthe film languished in development. Inside the suit, Leech mentioned thatthe Weinsteins frequently unlocked the script and forced him to rewrite it surprisingly than 17 occasions, "eviscerated" the film's budget by ongoing to help keep 200+ artists on payroll to essentially sit back on the hands, and paidKevin Sausage to depart behind a voice-over role. The film went over budget and so the Weinsteins went outdoors for fresh capital, obtaining new funding by mortgaging TWC's copyright toEscape. Consequently, TWC allegedly advised the litigants once they wanted their past due money, they will have to relinquish their to gross profit participation. In summary, the filmmakers allege the Weinsteins "sabotaged" their film. Soon, both sides were accusing each other of extortion. The brothers and sisters were during the time of the Oscar campaign round the King's Speech, to ensure that then they compensated $500,000 for the filmmakers in the purported effort to hush them up. The payment was allegedly round the advice of Boies, who told the Weinsteins they may send inside the money after which it recover it around the subsequent economic discomfort claim. (This legal ethics of Boies' advice increased to become host to contention later.) The suit was filed anyway, which introduced to numerous summer season several days of fighting in the courtroom. Now, within the first large decision inside the situation, NY condition judge Paul Feinman has rejected all of the pre-trial motions before him. The Weinsteins preferred low of have the situation transfered, fighting among other activities, that California will be a simpler forum where more skilled experts might be open to testify in regards to the workings in the entertainment industry. Plus, TWC mentioned that almost all the occasions at problem inside the situation happened outdoors of NY. Judge Feinman rejects all this, proclaiming that many occasions happened in NY, like the movie pitch, initial conferences, obligations, and script development. As well as the judge stays up for your NY film industry, pointing to have an article in Crain's NY Business which reported 63,000 everybody was employed by the film and TV production industry inside the condition. The judge decides to keep the problem for themselves. But no less than the Weinsteins might have their preferred lawyers. Judge Feinman has overlooked without prejudice an attempt to disqualify the Boies, Schiller & Flexner lawyer. The litigants contended that David Boies had be considered a material witness inside the situation as they could testify in regards to the Weinsteins' mindset after they made the "hush money" payment. The judge states that since no economic discomfort counterclaim has yet happened, disqualifying Boies might be premature.Nonetheless, he refuses a TWC motion to sanction the litigants for attempting to push Boies from representation additionally to turning lower requested sanctions in the litigants for breaking a discretion agreement. Finally, the judge has rejected to dismiss claims against a couple of from the other accused inside the situation, including Canadian-based animation outfit Rainmaker Entertainment, Escape Productions, and JTM Escape Company Ltd, the business which provided funding for the movie. There's enough inside the accusations where each one of these parties will need to still fight to protect operator in this affair. E-mail: eriqgardner@yahoo.com Twitter: @eriqgardner The Weinstein Company

London Critics' Circle moves film honours

LONDON -- The London Critics' Circle Film Honours has moved its date from mid-February towards the month of the month of january. The 32nd edition in the ceremony will probably be held Jan. 19 at London's BFI Southbank. Jason Solomons, chairman in the Critics' Circle Film Section, will host the ceremony. The alteration in dates takes the ceremony in the crowded honours month of February -- when the BAFTAs and Academy awards unspool -- and in to a window that's more vulnerable to attract star talent. "This date change will further underline the distinctive options of individuals who win and nominees which will make the London Critics' Circle Film Honours stand out within the crowd, highlighting certain films, performances and achievements that could be overlooked by other honours occasions," mentioned Solomons in the statement. Since its first edition in 1980, the Critics' Circle Film Honours have attracted a raft of talent, including Quentin Tarantino, Michael Caine, Martin Scorsese, Take advantage of Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, Kate Winslet and Kevin Spacey. The forthcoming edition will again occur in the help of the Critics' Circle charitable organization partner, the BFI National Archive, to help while using upkeep and restoration of British photos, including nine quiet features from Alfred Hitchcock. Contact Diana Lodderhose at diana.lodderhose@variety.com

Kristin Cavallari Gets the Boot on Dancing With the Stars

Kristin Cavallari Don't let the scattered boos from the audience fool you: The Dancing With the Stars crowd wasn't all that upset when reality star Kristin Cavallari was told she was headed for the hills. There was nothing close to the outrage displayed during DWTS's most shocking elimination ever, in Season 5, when the super-talented and chock full of personality Disney kid, Sabrina Byran (also partnered by pro Mark Ballas), was sent packing.No, other than head judge Len Goodman crying foul, this was small wave of protest over saying goodbye to a worthy competitor when several others - including Chaz Bono, Carson Kressley and Nancy Grace - don't have half of her dancing ability. But the fact is, she didn't attract enough votes to stick around.Maybe it's because Cavallari started the show in defensive mode, telling viewers the very first night that "I'm not a bitch," after playing one very successfully on The Hills. Or maybe it's because her personal story on Monday night, which featured dances based on "The Most Important Year of My LIfe," couldn't hold a candle to a wounded Iraqi war veteran (R.J. Martinez), a divorcee talk show host who loses her home in a fire (Ricki Lake), a child honoring his deceased father (Rob Kardashian) or the social isolation and fear one has to overcome when one discovers he or she is gay (Kressley) or wants to be a different gender (Chaz). Cavallari's biggest hurdle was choosing between the entertainment industry and going to college. "Maybe my story wasn't emotional enough," says Cavallari.Or well-known enough. "I didn't know who she was," said one woman in the crowd Tuesday night. "So I won't miss her."What did get the crowd excited was hearing that Cher will be in the audience next Monday night to cheer on her son, who escaped elimination yet again despite ending up at the bottom of the leader board. The other crowd-pleasing news was that former pro Julianne Hough, who has become an actress, will return on Tuesday for results night as part of her publicity push for the remake of "Footloose." Hough will dance with her co-star in the movie, Kenny Wormald. But, there will be a sibling dance, as well, says her brother, Derek: "We're cooking something up."What did you think of the latest DWTS elimination?Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine today!

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'Django Unchained' Gains 'Lost' Alum

The cast for "Django Unchained" continues to grow under the guidance of director Quentin Tarantino. The latest actor to join the film is "Lost's" M.C. Gainey. He will play Big John Brittle, an overseer at Carrucan Plantation. The movie follows Jamie Foxx as the titular Django, a freed slave who becomes a bounty hunter and goes to track down his slave wife and liberate her from her evil plantation owner, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. "Django Unchained" also includes Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Gerald McRaney, Kurt Russell and Laura Cayouette in its cast. Check out the rest of today's casting news after the jump! Derek Luke Will Now "Sparkle" Deadline has learned that "Antwone Fisher" star Derek Luke is set to star as the male lead in Sony Tristar's remake of "Sparkle." He will play Stix Warren, a songwriter who is the love interest to Sparkle. The film also stars Jordin Sparks in the title role, Whitney Houston, Mike Epps and Cee Lo Green. Salim Akil is directing the flick. Pink Says "Thanks For Sharing" Get ready for another pop star to make her big screen debut. Pink, who previously had a small role in the horror movie "Catacombs," will be headlining the upcoming sex addict dramedy "Thanks For Sharing." Pink -- real name Alecia Moore -- will be joining Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins and Mark Ruffalo in the film according to CinemaBlend. She will play Dede, a "kindred spirit" to "Book of Mormon" star Josh Gad's character, Neil. Toby Kebbell Heads To "The East" Twitch has learned that "Rock'N'Rolla" star Toby Kebbell is the latest actor to join Zal Batmanglij's "The East." He'll be joining the exciting cast of Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page and Brit Marling. "The East" follows a woman tasked with infiltrating an eco-terrorism group, only to fall in love with it's leader (played by Skarsgard). Kebbell is playing a character named Doc. Zach Gilford Takes "The Last Stand" Deadline has learned that Zach Gilford, best known for his role as quarterback Matt Saracen in "Friday Night Lights," has joined Arnold Schwarzenegger's comeback movie "The Last Stand." He will play the young small-town cop who works under Schwarzenegger's sheriff character. The movie is being directed by Kim Jee-woon, and is already starting to shoot in Albuquerque. Val Kilmer And Radha Mitchell Join "The Goats" D.J. Caruso is working fast on casting his new indie drama, "The Goats." Variety has learned that Val Kilmer and Radha Mitchell have already signed on to the project. The movie will follow two kids at a summer camp who end up getting stranded on Goat Island after being the victims of a cruel prank. They end up running away together on a "three-day journey of self-discovery." "The Goats" is slated to start shooting today in Georgia. Tell us what you thought of today's Casting Call in the comments section below or on Twitter!

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