Amblin Entertainment

Amblin Entertainment, Universal City, has named Brad Globe vice president-marketing. Globe previously ran the company's licensing and merchandising activities.

DreamWorks is preparing to make some changes in its movie division to increase production. And Steven Spielberg will be around to oversee the changes. There's been rumbling in Hollywood for two years that Spielberg has had second thoughts about the studio he launched in 1994 with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Those rumors heated up recently, particularly after Spielberg's film "Saving Private Ryan" missed the Best Picture honor at the Academy Awards.

Comic book creator-illustrator Rob Liefeld, 24, has signed a deal with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment to create a new hero for a feature motion picture. Liefeld's Image Entertainment Publishing Co. produces the "Youngblood" comic book series. Previously, Liefeld was an artist for Marvel Comics where he created characters for "X-Force."

The way he tells it, Stephen Kessler was raised in the heart of Tornado Alley--a stretch of Missouri where "every spring, super cell clouds explode across brilliant blue skies" and children huddle under school desks when tornado warning sirens wail. "I have lived through floods, seen windstorms rip massive oaks from the earth and the devastation caused by tornadoes firsthand," Kessler recalled in a court affidavit. "Here nature can be sudden death. Inexplicable. Cruel.

Amblin Lay Offs 17% of Staff: Amblin Entertainment, the film and TV production company which last year produced "Hook," let go 11 employees, or about 17% of its 64-member staff, as part of a "consolidation and streamlining" move. Most of the positions were in administration and post-production, a spokesman for the Universal-based company said, and would not effect current projects in development.

Songwriter Sues Over Disney Film: Victor Cesario sued Alan Silvestri and producers of the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit? ," alleging that Silvestri used Cesario's music in the film. The U.S. District Court lawsuit alleges that Cesario had Silvestri arrange a 1974 composition he wrote, "Let's Start Out, Where It Ended."

Harvey Entertainment Co. announced that it expects to return to profitability in the second quarter this year as a result of an agreement with Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment to produce a motion picture sequel to "Casper." The Universal City-based company also predicted it would post profits in its third and fourth quarters from the upcoming release of its direct-to-video feature "Casper, A Spirited Beginning," which will be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and his trademark baseball cap, director Steven Spielberg paid a high-profile visit to the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday, touring the exhibits and sampling the newest video games, including the interactive version of his hit movie "Jurassic Park." Spielberg said his Amblin Entertainment is interested in purchasing a small educational multimedia software developer.

A plastic surgeon from Irvine is suing some of Hollywood's biggest outfits, including Steven Spielberg's company, asserting that a melody he wrote to get over the death of his baby daughter was used as the theme music for "Jurassic Park." Dr. Donald I. Altman says film composer John Williams ("Star Wars," "Indiana Jones") "intentionally or unintentionally" copied the melody that Altman composed in 1990, five years after his daughter drowned in a neighbor's pool.

Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment will produce six original television movies for Turner Network Television in an unusual arrangement that will see the formation of a repertory company to appear in original works by top playwrights. The deal was announced Wednesday by TNT at the Western Cable Show in Anaheim. Among the writers involved with the TV project, which will appear under the "Showcase Theater" banner, are Tom Stoppard, John Patrick Shanley, David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein.

Cruise. Hanks. Ford. Schwarzenegger. In Hollywood, the most highly paid movie stars are such instantly recognizable icons that one name says it all. Now it's time to add a new moniker to the list: Casper, as in Casper the Friendly Ghost. After languishing in obscurity for years, the cartoon character emerged in 1995 as a formidable box-office attraction with the film "Casper," earning nearly $1 billion in worldwide theatrical, video and merchandising income.

Harvey Entertainment Co. announced that it expects to return to profitability in the second quarter this year as a result of an agreement with Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment to produce a motion picture sequel to "Casper." The Universal City-based company also predicted it would post profits in its third and fourth quarters from the upcoming release of its direct-to-video feature "Casper, A Spirited Beginning," which will be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

A plastic surgeon from Irvine is suing some of Hollywood's biggest outfits, including Steven Spielberg's company, asserting that a melody he wrote to get over the death of his baby daughter was used as the theme music for "Jurassic Park." Dr. Donald I. Altman says film composer John Williams ("Star Wars," "Indiana Jones") "intentionally or unintentionally" copied the melody that Altman composed in 1990, five years after his daughter drowned in a neighbor's pool.

After creating dinosaurs real enough to scare up nearly $1 billion at the box office with "Jurassic Park" and a wrenchingly real-to-life vision of the Holocaust with "Schindler's List," what's next for Steven Spielberg? The answer could be "Let's Make a Deal."

Roundtable writing--creating or, more often, fine-tuning a script collectively--is a time-honored tradition in television, the underpinning of comedies ranging from Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" to "Murphy Brown." The recent and controversial use of that process for the big screen, however, has, thus far, provoked more aggravation than laughs.

In the new ABC series "Birdland," beleaguered doctors and staff members at a hospital psychiatric ward have their hands full dealing with patients whose lives have tipped off-center. Judging from the full hands of two of the show's executive producers--Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald--one might suspect that they may be going a bit cuckoo themselves. In addition to the heavy workload of overseeing "Birdland," which airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m.

DreamWorks is preparing to make some changes in its movie division to increase production. And Steven Spielberg will be around to oversee the changes. There's been rumbling in Hollywood for two years that Spielberg has had second thoughts about the studio he launched in 1994 with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Those rumors heated up recently, particularly after Spielberg's film "Saving Private Ryan" missed the Best Picture honor at the Academy Awards.

Roundtable writing--creating or, more often, fine-tuning a script collectively--is a time-honored tradition in television, the underpinning of comedies ranging from Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" to "Murphy Brown." The recent and controversial use of that process for the big screen, however, has, thus far, provoked more aggravation than laughs.

Wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and his trademark baseball cap, director Steven Spielberg paid a high-profile visit to the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday, touring the exhibits and sampling the newest video games, including the interactive version of his hit movie "Jurassic Park." Spielberg said his Amblin Entertainment is interested in purchasing a small educational multimedia software developer.

Comic book creator-illustrator Rob Liefeld, 24, has signed a deal with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment to create a new hero for a feature motion picture. Liefeld's Image Entertainment Publishing Co. produces the "Youngblood" comic book series. Previously, Liefeld was an artist for Marvel Comics where he created characters for "X-Force."