Top Story
Disney’s Broadway hit Beauty and the Beast, a show seven and a half years in the running, may close up shop Wednesday if unions don’t allow pay cuts, according to Variety. Disney is requesting a four-week, 25% pay cut to help the show recover from lost revenues since the September 11 attacks. Other shows, including Kiss Me, Kate, Les Miserables and The Full Monty, have already received union concessions.
In Court
The Supreme Court refused to review several cases in the entertainment industry Monday. According to Variety, a woman’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling which gave her $2.35 for the use of her quilts in the film How to Make an American Quilt was refused, as was C. DeLores Tucker’s case, wife of the late Tupac Shakur. Tucker was suing Time and Newsweek for reporting that her sex life was injured when her husband used her name in his album “All Eyez on Me.” The court said there was no proof the magazines tried to be malicious.
In General
EMI Group Plc is expected to announce today they will license their songs to Pressplay, an online music service, according to Reuters. This move will make EMI the first to coordinate with Internet music services without taking ownership in those services.
The Others, the summer thriller starring Nicole Kidman, has now grossed $86.7 million in the U.S., at least $13 million abroad, and has maintained its position in the top five for eight consecutive weeks in the box office, according to Variety. The film’s record-setting statistics may be an indication that it contains just the right amount of fright–minus graphic detail-for audiences who want entertainment, but remain hesitant due to the September 11 attacks.
The networks are ready to get back to real life issues: they are not going to avoid topics dealing with terrorism as they did the past few weeks since the attacks, according to Variety. Wolfgang Petersen, executive producer of CBS‘s CIA drama The Agency, expressed his sentiment: “Instead of walking away from it, we’ll get into it,” he said. “That’s what (the CIA) is dealing with.”
Chef Wolfgang Puck‘s restaurant, Avalon Cove in Disney’s California Adventure theme park, closed Monday due to financial duress, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Disney plans to open another restaurant in its place with a more family-oriented feel in time for the holidays.
John Cusack is scheduled to play an artist patronized by Adolf Hitler in the upcoming film Max, according to Variety.
Madonna will be presenting this year’s Turner prize at London’s Tate Art Gallery on December 9, the BBC reports. The prize, which was established in 1984, awards a 20,000-pound prize to a “British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work.”
Singer Chubby Checker wants a statue dedicated to him when he’s inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the president of the Hall says it’s “an unreasonable request,” the Associated Press reports. Checker‘s hit “The Twist” was an American chart topper in 1960, 1962 and in 1988. “I want my flowers while I’m alive,” he wrote. “I can’t smell them when I’m dead.”
