Between 1974 when he won Best Supporting Actor for his turn as the young Don Corleone in The Godfather Part II and 1991 when he was contending for Best Actor in Cape Fear, Robert De Niro was nominated six times and won two Oscars (1980’s Raging Bull was the other one) in a span of 17 years. But remarkably it has now…

Diane Haithman is an AwardsLine contributor. Remember the 1971 movie Shaft? Ben Affleck doesn't want you to—at least, not while you are watching his 2012 movie Argo, set in the turbulent 1979-80 era of the Iranian revolution and the Iran hostage crisis. In creating the look of Argo — the stranger-than-fiction true…

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended the deadline for members to vote for Oscar nominations by one day to Friday, January 4, 2013, 5.p.m. PT.  (The original date was Thursday, January 3, 5 p.m. PT).  Members may vote online or submit a paper ballot.  Any votes received after…

ST. LOUIS, MO and NEW YORK, NY –– DECEMBER 31, 2012 –– Charter Communications and The Walt Disney Company today announced a comprehensive long-term distribution agreement to deliver Disney's robust lineup of top quality sports, news and entertainment content to Charter TV customers across televisions, computers…

Thomas McLean is an AwardsLine contributor. Nearly 10 years after The Lord Of The Rings trilogy wrapped its record-breaking run with a best picture Oscar and more than $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales, director Peter Jackson has done the last thing he expected: He got the band back together for The Hobbit: An Unexp…

The new agreement is with the National Cable Television Cooperative, which negotiates programming deals for more than 950 small to mid-sized cable systems. The announcement is similar to ones that NBCUniversal recently made for agreements with companies including Cablevision, Mediacom, Suddenlink and Verizon. It’s…

The biggest media industry bankruptcy ever will end today after four years with Tribune’s chief creditors — Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co — empowered to run the Chicago based broadcasting and newspaper power. The reorganization values the company at about $4.5B. The new…

Oscar-winning sound editor Mike Hopkins drowned in an accident while he and friends were rafting in the Tararua Range in northern New Zealand. Hopkins, 53, was found dead by a helicoptor rescue team after an inflatable craft capsized on the Waiohine River on Sunday afternoon, according to The OneRing.net blog. His…

Anthony D’Alessandro is Managing Editor of AwardsLine. "I think she had to be in there for 20 minutes before I yelled action." Quentin Tarantino is referring to the time that Kerry Washington spent in the “hotbox” — a hole in the ground on a plantation where slaves were sent when they tried to escape. It's where…

Moonrise Kingdom amounted to Wes Anderson at his best. It was a relate-able story of first love, injected with Anderson’s playful wit, his sense of the absurd, and his singular visual style. The result was a $66 million worldwide gross and one of the year’s big specialty film hits. Since making his debut on Bottle Rock…

David Mermelstein is an AwardsLine contributor. When we think of Anthony Hopkins, psychopaths may spring to mind. After all, the Welsh actor won an Oscar in 1992 for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, a career-defining role. But of course there's much more to Hopkins than playing brilliant fictional…

Defiant CNN host Piers Morgan added more fire to his public fight with gun supporters in a column published in the Daily Mail. Morgan has been at odds with gun advocates since the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook massacre, which prompted the British journalist to launch an aggressive pro-gun control campaign on his show, clashing…