Today was supposed to be the deadline for Carl Icahn’s $7 per share tender offer made to Lionsgate stockholders. But stockholders were cold to the proposal: only 6.55 million shares have been tendered so far. I don’t think the 10-day extension is going to give Icahn his hostile takeover unless he ups the ante…

EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Tarses is staying at Sony Pictures Television with a new two-year overall deal. Tarses is among the studio's most prolific non-writing producers. She exec prods two Sony series, TBS' My Boys and TNT's Hawthorne as well as four buzzed-about comedy pilots this development season, Mr. Sunshine and Happy E…

WriteThru: So here is the latest on 20th Century Fox's efforts to lock in a director for X-Men: First Class, which will begin production late summer or early fall. I'm told that Samuel Bayer, who directed the weekend's top grossing film A Nightmare On Elm Street, will meet with the studio tomorrow, and joins a list of…

CHICAGO, April 30 — Ed Wilson, who has served as Tribune Company’s chief revenue and sales officer since 2009 and as president of Tribune Broadcasting since 2008, announced today that he will step down from both positions effective immediately and be retained as a consultant to the company. “The time is right for both…

CBS News released more excerpts from the Sunday interview with Conan O'Brien on 60 Minutes. Asked to comment on NBC statements that The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien was losing money, O’Brien said, “I honestly don’t see how that’s possible. It’s really not possible. It isn’t possible.” Regrets? “I don’t regret…

Warner Bros has set Batman 3 for release on July 20, 2012, according to an internal email just sent by distribution chief Dan Fellman. There is no official start of production date at this point because Chris Nolan just completed Inception, the film that opens July 16. The film is expected to be done in 3D, as studio…

EXCLUSIVE: It’s been kept completely secret — until now. But I’ve learned that savvy media investor and entertainment programmer Allen Shapiro is the wizard behind the curtain of this One Equity Partners deal-in-the-making to purchase CKX. Sources tell me that the many weeks of day and night meetings to hammer out a…

EXCLUSIVE: MTV is adding two projects to its scripted slate. The cable network is close to a 12-episode order to Good Vibes, an animated comedy from The Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green.  Additionally, it has ordered a comedy pilot tentatively titled THAT Girl. Launching a scripted lineup of live-action…

It may have been the NFL draft after all. After a miserable ratings performance with across-the-board series lows last Thursday against ESPN's telecast of the NFL draft, the broadcast networks rebounded last night, the opening night of the May sweep. On CBS, Survivor (4.0 rating/13 share in adults 18-49), once again…

UPDATE: Epix is probably the 4th place pay channel right now, behind HBO, Showtowm, and Starz. But Oliver Stone just signed a development deal to turn Bruce Wagner’s novel Still Holding into a series pilot with Epix which is furiously trying to sign up carriers. Stone had a previous relationship with HBO, which aired…

The producers intend to frame the movie in the vein of All The President’s Men. One of the planned film’s hooks is that some of the journalists are themselves Catholic and were conflicted as they researched and wrote their stories. This journalism angle seems a fascinating way to approach the topic. And…