X17 Industry Wrap
Posted on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 2:32pm PDT By X17 Staff
Can Avatar Top Titanic? James Cameron's Avatar is headed into a four-day holiday weekend with the anticipation that the blockbuster film may top it's director's previous box office record to become the top-grossing film of all time. Avatar has spent four weeks atop the box office and this weekend's other openers will likely not be much competition -- Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli and Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door will be the strongest contenders. If Avatar wins this week, it will be the first film to top rankings five weeks in a row since M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense in 1999. Cameron's up against his own Titanic record -- a $1.84 billion worldwide take for the film in 1998. |
The Golden Globes Will Go On! This Sunday's Golden Globes awards will go on as planned, despite the earthquake disaster in Haiti and the potential telethons that could have cropped up this weekend to compete with the Globes broadcast. George Clooney's Hope for Haiti telethon will air on the 22nd, the following Friday. Instead, it will be announced during the NBC telecast from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will make a $100,000 donation to Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti relief fund for victims of the earthquake. |
MGM Up For Sale Bids are expected to come in this weekend for the purchase of Hollywood studio MGM. Moelis & Co. is the consulting firm hired by the studio to identify companies interested in acquiring all or part of MGM. The company has not called the process an auction but there are nearly 150 lenders holding $3.7 billion in debt for the studio, who are pushing for its sale. Fox won't make an offer, due to strict non-disclosure rules that require potential buyers to sign off on confidentiality agreements require for access to a virtual data room. Warner Bros., Lionsgate, AT&T, and Summit Entertainment will bid. Offers of around $1 billion and above are expected though insiders don't expect the price to go over $2 billion. |
Holly Madison To Get Her Own E! Series Another Girls Next Door star is getting her own series. Holly's World will follow Madison around Las Vegas as she stars in the Peepshow production. |