Home Box Office Inc

Even before the pilot for "Luck," the new David Milch-Michael Mann series about horse racing, appeared on HBO in December, word began to get around that this thoroughbred -- however fierce -- took a while to get around the track. And this was even from people who liked the show. Just wait till episode four, they said. Or five. If most television -- even high-toned television -- is a collection of short stories, "Luck" is a novel. A big, sprawling one, with a layered setting and close to a dozen main characters, some woven together in complex ways and many not who they initially appear to be. It's every bit as ambitious and multifaceted as "The Wire," which also aired on HBO between 2002 and 2008.

Home Box Office collected the most honors at Saturday's nighttime Emmy Awards presentation in Pasadena, including multiple statuettes for dramatic series "The Sopranos" and its movies "The Rat Pack" and "Winchell." Saturday's nontelevised event encompassed more than 50 categories, primarily in technical areas such as cinematography, editing and sound. An additional 27 awards, recognizing programs and performers, will be presented Sept. 12 and televised on Fox.

Looking over the Emmy nominations announced Thursday morning, you'd almost think that the TV academy was honoring two separate industries. For drama and made-for-TV movies and miniseries, it's HBO and its basic-cable cousins. For everything else, it's broadcast. HBO, in the midst of a programming comeback, topped the overall count, with 104 nominations, or more than one-fifth of the total. The premium cable network's haul was led by 21 nods for the Depression-era melodrama "Mildred Pierce," 18 for the Prohibition-era drama "Boardwalk Empire" and 13 for "Game of Thrones," the last of which overcame voters' longtime aversion to the fantasy genre.

A Los Angeles writer who helps aspiring screenwriters learn their craft has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Home Box Office and the creator of HBO's offbeat fantasy-mystery series "Carnivale," claiming the series contains "remarkable and substantial similarities" to a novel that he had been working on since the 1980s.

First the unhooking, now the unzipping. There's good reason to resist censorship from government and other blue noses who wish to shape pop culture in their own images. Just as there's reason to cringe at the arrival of something gross that nourishes their crusade to apply the clamps. As evidence of just how lewd television can get under the panoramic umbrellas of art and information, HBO is airing a special tonight titled "Private Dicks: Men Exposed" that isn't about private detectives.

Home Box Office Inc., New York, said it has an agreement in principle to acquire Los Angeles-based Cannon Group's share of the joint venture in the home video field. No terms were announced, but an industry report put the price at between $5 million and $10 million. Loss-plagued Cannon has agreed to sell some larger assets in recent months, including the film library of its Screen Entertainment subsidiary in London to Weintraub Entertainment, Los Angeles, for more than $100 million.

"Cinderella," it's not. But as star-crossed star biographies go, "Gia" has it all. Gia Carangi was a supermodel before the term was widely used, pouting bewitchingly from the covers of international fashion magazines in the late '70s. She died of AIDS in 1986, at age 26. She was a heroin addict. No fairy princess, she was modeling's queen of self-destruction. Her story was first told in "Thing of Beauty--The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia" by Stephen Fried (Pocket Books, 1993).

It's rough getting into the head and behind the large, hollow eyes of the man with the dirty baseball cap and the sweat-soiled undershirt. Gary McCullough won't stay still for the camera. He is a junkie in a hurry. There are drugs to score. When he finally slows down at the forbidding intersection where Fayette and Monroe streets meet in West Baltimore to face the camera for an interview, McCullough's desperation momentarily dissolves into something far more accessible, and approachable.

The economy is pounding entertainment companies left and right, but Time Warner Inc.'s pay cable channel HBO so far has been immune to the turmoil, its top executives said Thursday. Speaking at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena, HBO Co-President Richard Plepler said the company's strong DVD sales, along with little evidence of subscribers' dropping the service to save a few bucks, had the network feeling "cautiously optimistic" that it could weather the storm.

HBO's sultry vampire drama "True Blood" has become a surprise hit for the pay cable network and has almost single-handedly taken the network back to the top of the cultural zeitgeist. The show, whose second season premiered Sunday to numbers the network hasn't seen since the last days of its mob drama "The Sopranos," is also on track to become HBO's next cash cow. For Time Warner Inc.'s HBO, it couldn't come at a more opportune time.

The last time HBO built a series around primarily female characters, the show was "Sex and the City" and it revolved around four white women exploring the mysteries of love in the wilds of New York City. Now the premium cable network is launching another female-centric show, "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," and it's about two black women investigating the mysteries within the wilds of Africa.

When Alan Taylor is directing your HBO television pilot, it's usually a sign the program is a lock to get on the air. The Emmy-award winning director has put his imprint on nearly every one of the network's major series, including "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," "Six Feet Under," "Big Love" and "Deadwood." But Taylor's latest HBO project, "Bored to Death," is up against stiffer competition than usual.

HBO Films President Colin Callender, the executive most responsible for the premium channel's ambitious, sophisticated and sometimes hugely expensive movies and miniseries, said Tuesday that he was leaving his corporate home of the last 20 years to launch his own entertainment company. "This was solely my decision to leave and return to my entrepreneurial roots," the British-born former independent producer said in a conference call.

Yes, the Dodgers still pack Dodger Stadium most nights, more than 3.5 million fans expected to turn out by season's end. True, they drew 115,000 for their nostalgic return to the Coliseum this spring for an exhibition. The fans come for the memories, they come for the experience, they come because Vin Scully tells them to come. But they don't come for the buzz. This is a town built on star power, the home of Showtime.

NEW YORK -- Cody Franchetti believes it's ridiculous to feel guilty about having inherited wealth. Guilt is just an offshoot of a Puritanical culture, he claims, and should be reserved "for old women and nuns." Easy enough to say when you're handsome, cultured and one of the heirs to the Milliken textile fortune.

HBO Chief Executive Chris Albrecht was arrested in an alleged assault on his girlfriend early Sunday outside the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas. Hours earlier, Home Box Office Inc. had broadcast the World Boxing Council's super-welterweight fight from the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated Oscar De La Hoya in front of a celebrity-packed sold-out crowd. The fight ended before 10 p.m. Saturday. Shortly after 3 a.m.

HBO DOMINATED the annual Emmy nominations once again but faced stiffer competition than usual from rival networks that have adopted the premium cable channel's approach to inventive dramatic series. The network drew 85 nominations, one fewer than last year, mostly for its miniseries, movies and comedies, while its tent-pole dramatic series were largely overlooked by Emmy voters. ABC placed a relatively close second, with 76.

HBO has ordered series pilots from "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker, "The Sopranos" executive producer Terence Winter and "The Wire" creator David Simon. The proposed series fit well with HBO's programming strategy after the exit of longtime network architect Chris Albrecht. The plan seems to be to greenlight a greater number of shows than in the past, without fundamentally changing the notion of what an HBO series should be. "We've had to be a little more proactive" in pursuing projects, Michael Lombardo, president of the network's programming group, told reporters Thursday.