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ROBERT ALTMAN DEAD AT 81 Legendary director Robert Altman, whose films included MASH, Nashville, The Player,and most recently The Prairie Home Companion, and who received five Oscar nominations during his long career, died Monday in Los Angeles at age 81. The announcement was made by his film company, Sandcastle 5 Productions today (Tuesday). The cause of death was not disclosed. Earlier this year, he received a lifetime achievement Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences....

MGM UNITES WITH CRUISE MGM is bringing United Artists back from history and handing it over to Tom Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, to run it. The company, once again manifesting its determination to remain an independent entity following its acquisition by an investment consortium that included Sony Films, said that Cruise and Wagner were being given a “substantial ownership” of UA and would have full control over the company’s production slate....

GURUS EXPECT CLAUS TO FLY Christmas will arrive early at the box office this weekend with the new Vince Vaughn comedy Fred Claus. Box office forecasters estimate that it will take in $22-26 million and wind up as the top attraction. Coming in a close second, they predict, will be last weekend’s winner, American Gangster, with about $18-22 million – or possibly Bee Movie, which ranked No. 2 last weekend. Analysts have expressed little hope for the war-related Lions for Lambs, despite the fact that it costars Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep....

MCCLELLAN ADMITS HE GAVE MEDIA FALSE INFO Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan admitted Sunday that he had “unknowingly” presented “false information” to the news media about President Bush’s Iraq strategy. “I was part of this propaganda campaign, absolutely,” McClellan conceded on NBC’s Meet the Pressas he continued to promote his new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. McClellan, who has been criticized by both the right and the left for not having voiced his objections while still part of the president’s inner-circle, indicated that he agreed with those critics....

VIACOM PROFITED FROM STRIKE, TOO Just days after one of Sumner Redstone’s media companies, CBS, surprised analysts by reporting a 14-percent jump in profits for the first quarter despite the writers’ strike, his other major media company, Viacom, reported a 33-percent jump. The company said that its profits rose to $270 million from $203 million a year ago. Overall revenue rose 15 percent to $3.12 billion, far ahead of analysts’ estimates, who credited the results primarily to strong performances by Nickelodeon and MTV....

LENO AGAINST CRIME Not only did Jay Leno acknowledge that he’ll be up against killer shows when he debuts with his nightly variety hour in the fall, but he predicted that people, weary of all the murders in the 10:00 p.m. hour will gravitate towards his show to escape all the crime dramas on the other networks. In a lengthy video promo prepared for a screening at NBC’s upfront presentations in New York Monday (and now posted online), Leno assures his viewers that while his competitors are up to committing more mayhem, he’ll be up to the same schtick he has been crafting on the Tonightshow for 17 years....

O.J.: HE’S SPENT THE “BLOOD MONEY” O.J. Simpson said during a radio interview Wednesday that he agreed to write a book and give an interview in which he presented a hypothetical account of how he might have killed his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman for the money and that he has spent all of it “on my bills.” Published reports had said that Simpson had received a $3.5-million advance and that the funds would go to his children....

COURIC RETURNS CBS NEWS TO #1 By any measure, The CBS Evening News with Katie Couricturned out to be a huge success last week. According to figures released Monday by Nielsen Research, the news program averaged 10.2 million viewers between Tuesday, when Couric debuted, and Friday. While the newscast saw a 45-percent drop-off over the four days, it remained substantially ahead of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williamsand ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson, which averaged 7....

ALL EYES ON LENO TONIGHT MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY WILL FOX “PURGE” GERALDO? Speculation that Geraldo Rivera’s days on the Fox News Channel may be numbered arose over the weekend as Rivera himself acknowledged on his “Geraldo at Large” program that he has found himself increasingly “out of sync” with the rest of FNC’s right-leaning personalities. On the program, which featured as a guest conservative commentator Ann Coulter, Rivera read an email that he had received from a viewer calling him “a bad apple” among the channel’s lineup....

Actresses Emily Browning and Carla Gugino, as well as actor Oscar Isaac, will be making musical contributions to the soundtrack for director Zack Snyder’s upcoming fantasy adventure Sucker Punch. Emily Browning will sing on three tracks, lending her voice to covers of the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, The Smiths’ Alseep, and the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind. Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac will duet on a jazzy rendition of Roxy Music’s Love is The New Drug....

Finally! Superman is coming to The CW’s Supergirl. The DC Comics TV universe is really beloved by the fan base, but when CBS decided to air the first season of Supergirl last year, it was a bit of a gamble considering the huge audience they needed to justify the cost of the show. As it turned out, the show seems to fit better at home with the other DC heroes over on The CW....

Gear up for another ride in Supernatural’s ‘67 Chevy Impala, as brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester hunt for what gives most people nightmares. On September 11, Warner Home Video will release Supernatural: The Complete Second Season on DVD. Bound by tragedy and blood to a dangerous otherworldly mission, the two brothers travel from the Colorado wilderness to Nebraska farmlands and on to isolated Wisconsin lakes, encountering creatures that most people believe only exist in folklore, superstition and nightmares....

Deadline reports that Taylor Lautner has locked up yet another project with Fox 2000’s Incarceron. We first reported on the futuristic sci-fi adventure back in March, when Fox 2000 acquired the rights to Catherine Fisher’s novel. Taylor Lautner will play Finn, a young lifelong resident of Incarceron, which is a fully self-contained prison society. Finn meets the daughter of the Incarceron warden, who is housed in her own prison which resembles the 17th Century....

For over ten years, Bob’s Burgers has been grilling up exciting plotlines, from hilarious familial pickles to meaty interpersonal conflicts. Long-time fans of the series have been clamoring for a movie since its humble beginning, and now, their respective waits are finally over. Though the film was initially announced in 2017, production was delayed for reasons obvious to anyone not living underneath a rock for the past few years. The Bob’s Burgers Movie was finally released in 2022....

One big addition this season is Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy. Speaking to EW about season 3, showrunner Eric Kripke said: Let’s take a look at the key players in The Boys season three. William “Billy” Butcher Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) is the leader of the Boys. Formerly a member of the Special Air Services and the CIA, he is automatically suspicious of and distrustful toward all Supes. His training also makes him a lethal and skilled combatant in all situations....

The series stars Diane Kruger and Demián Bichir as Sonya North and Marco Ruiz, detectives from El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico who must work together to stop a deadly killer working on both sides of the Mexican-American border. The show is actually based on a Swedish show of the same name that follows two detectives on the border of Sweden and Denmark who must find a killer before it’s too late....

The Crow is receiving a new entry in the form of a reboot that will be directed by Rupert Sanders of Snow White & the Huntsman and the live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation. With production aiming to begin in June, The Crow is traversing the film market in Cannes, which producers are hopeful will help secure the needed funding. Twenty-eight years ago, Brandon Lee died making The Crow. The film was eventually released and quickly became a cult classic....

Easily the funniest interview of the year Robin Williams is the undisputed master of improv comedy. He had everyone in stitches during the interviews for RV. It was like your own private comedy hour. The guy is just a non-stop laugh riot. I’ve tried to add some of the off color comments and impressions to this article, but it doesn’t have the same effect in print. Luckily you can go see him in RV, which is pretty funny and a solid film for the whole family....

Earlier today, I had the good fortune to be invited along with select press members to chat with Sam Worthington about his brand new venture with Radical Studios where he will be creating graphic novels with his longtime Aussie friends Michael Schwarz and John Schwarz. Towards the end of the interview, the talk turned to Clash of the Titans 2, which he wanted us to make it clear that it was definitely being shot in 3D....

Earlier this week, MTV released a new trailer for the network’s Scream Halloween special, airing Tuesday, October 18 at 9 PM ET. At the time, the network hadn’t officially renewed the show for Season 3, but that changed today, with the network issuing a six-episode order for Season 3. No details about returning cast members, or when the season may premiere, have been revealed, but there may be some behind-the-scenes changes in store for the series....