EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that the final film in the Twilight Saga series Breaking Dawn – Part 2  is sending its cast on another major international promotional tour before the movie opens on November 16th. My sources say the countries are: Australia, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Scotland, Ireland, England, Spain…

The Motion Picture Association of America and SAG-AFTRA today commended Gov. Jerry Brown for signing into law a two-year extension of California's $100 million a year film and television tax credits. Read their statements below: “The state of California took a big step forward today, thanks to Governor Brown and the…

Governor Jerry Brown today signed legislation granting a two-year extension of California's $100 million-a-year film and television tax credit program, which now will run until July 2017. Today was the deadline for Brown to sign the nearly identical Assembly and state Senate bills. Currently dispensed under a lottery s…

Brian Brooks is managing editor of MovieLine. There were a few weeks there when the specialties shined compared to their studio brethren — overall box office slumped, but newcomers like The Master and Arbitrage impressed. Well, the final weekend of September saw limited-release titles lack the star-power of those…

SUNDAY AM, 4TH UPDATE: Hollywood finally can celebrate better box office which breaks a 5-week losing streak. Friday and Saturday overperformed for an ‘up’ weekend: $110M total moviegoing, which is +20% better than last year. And Sony Pictures has $66.2M – or 56% – of it. Saturday especially was an “absolutely huge…

UPDATE OCT. 3: I'm trying to get the full story. But I've learned that everyone associated with the futuristic actioner Looperin China — Sony and TriStar Pictures, FilmDistrict, Endgame Entertainment, and the Chinese co-producer DMG Entertainment — made a blooper. Their execs reported early but wrong box office…

CBS’ Made In Jersey logged the lowest-rated new series premiere so far this fall among adults 18-49. The legal drama opened with a 1.1/4 at 9 PM last night. It tied the final season premiere of Fox’s Fringe (1.1/4) as the lowest-rated originals on Friday. Made In Jersey was down 39% from last fall’s season premiere of…

Julliard-trained actor Michael O’Hare who helped launch the Babylon 5 sci-fi TV series by portraying Commander Jeffrey Sinclair in its first season, passed away Friday night from complications of cardiac arrest. He was 60. The show’s creator J Michael Straczynski posted on his Facebook page that O’Hare had been in a…

Formerly The New York Times Publisher and Chief Executive, the media legend Arthur Ochs Sulzberger known as “Punch” who guided the newspaper and parent company through 34 years of tumultuous change, died today at his home in Southampton, Long Island, after a long illness. He was 86. His death was announced by his…

There’s been sordid news in the past 48 hours about the actor Johnny Lewis who played a biker on the FX show Sons Of Anarchy committing murder and then dying himself. But what has been lost is the true identity of his victim, described by media merely as his 81-year-old Los Feliz landlady Catherine Davis. Now she’s…

Please don’t refer to them anymore as ‘elusive’ and ‘reclusive’. And instead of the ‘Wachowski Brothers’ or the ‘Wachowski  Siblings’, they now prefer to be called ‘Wachowski Starship’. To promote their upcoming sci-fi fantasy epic Cloud Atlas, the writing and directing duo are plug, plug, plugging it everywhere. They…

Walt Disney World has spent nearly $2.5 million on almost exclusively GOP candidates and groups in Florida so far this election cycle in an attempt to stop casino gambling. So says the Orlando Sentinel after a review of state records showing Disney’s political contributions: Disney’s political spending in Florida has…