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In a move that spares Universal Orlando theme parks a potential financial jam next year, Steven Spielberg has agreed to delay by seven years his option to demand a payout worth hundreds of millions of dollars under a longstanding consulting...
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One of the keys to the strong $35.3-million opening of "Couples Retreat" was that oldest of Hollywood marketing ploys: the glitzy media junket. Universal flew dozens of journalists to Bora Bora for interviews with the cast in the same tropical...
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Buried deep in Patrick Range McDonald's absorbing profile of agent Howard Bragman, there's a sentence that took me off guard. Bragman specializes in helping gay celebrities craft coming-out strategies; he's got "a famous musician who's still closeted from the public" due next...
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As if the management at Universal Pictures didn't have enough to worry about. As rumors continue to swirl about an impending executive shake-up at the Hollywood studio, Universal Studios President Ron Meyer and his team apparently had no clue that...
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The recession is officially fading and box-office grosses are as strong as ever, but the entire film industry seems to contracting in pain today, from major to micro. Variety reports that Universal has frozen development for the rest of the year -- if your project wasn't already realistically getting...
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Universal Pictures' hopes of becoming a major video game publisher have been put on hold in the face of a bad economy and a major flop. According to three people familiar with the studio's video game operations, it is no...
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Apparently there's more to fear in Redbox's $1 DVD rentals than meets the eye. The leading DVD kiosk vendor has done deals with half of the Hollywood studios (Lions Gate Entertainment, Sony Corp. and Paramount Pictures), while the other half...
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The Redbox legal saga started off complicated and dull, but it's becoming nutty and hilarious. To recap: Redbox rents $1/day DVDs at automated kiosks at 7-Eleven, Walgreens, etc, also selling the used discs for as little as $7, sometimes as soon as 12 days after release, which is far cheaper, far...
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Redbox filed suit Tuesday against Warner Home Video, its third such lawsuit against a Hollywood studio over attempts to delay distribution of newly released DVDs to the operator of $1 movie rental kiosks. The suit takes issue with new distribution...
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Hollywood's latest cliffhanger has everyone in town speculating about the fate of Universal Pictures movie chiefs Marc Shmuger and David Linde. Many are wondering whether the two will survive the disastrous year their studio has had this past year with...
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The DVD business may be down, but it's not out yet for the biggest titles. Universal Pictures' "Fast & Furious," the first big-budget event movie, the first to sell more than $150 million of movie tickets domestically and the first...
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Will the U.S. Olympic Committee grab the gold or suffer one of those crushing "agony of defeat" moments? A controversy over the U.S. committee's plans to launch its own cable channel intensified today when the International Olympic Committee, the worldwide...
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Movie studios like to operate in their comfort zones. Hey, who doesn't? So, Universal Pictures, which is betting on three high-profile comedies this summer, is going to focus heavily on comedies and "event" movies when putting together its release schedule...
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Universal Music Group has enticed another major label -- Sony Music Entertainment --- to join its planned Vevo music video service. Sony will contribute professionally created videos from its roster of performers, which includes Bruce Springsteen (aka The Boss), Justin...
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"Up," the latest from Disney/Pixar, sailed to $21.4 million in box office on Friday. That's just under the $23.2 million that the last Pixar flick -- "Wall-E" -- took in on its opening day last year in route to a...