Movie Industry

The deal In its first potential project, CBS Films options Alex Flinn's "Beastly," a modern-day retelling of the "Beauty and the Beast" story set in a New York City high school. The players Amy Baer, president and chief executive of CBS Films, plus Maria Faillace, senior vice president, and Bruce Tobey, chief operating officer. Susan Cartsonis ( "Aquamarine" and "No Reservations") will be the producer. Flinn is represented on literary rights by George Nicholson of Sterling Lord Literistic and on film rights by Jody Hotchkiss of Hotchkiss and Associates.

A Florida company won the rights to Axium International Inc.'s staffing subsidiary at a federal bankruptcy auction Wednesday, two weeks after the Hollywood payroll service provider abruptly folded. MPS Group Inc., a provider of staffing and consulting services, won the auction after its bid of $8.075 million was approved by a bankruptcy judge during a three-hour proceeding in downtown Los Angeles. The publicly traded Jacksonville, Fla.

Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to announce today that it has signed an agreement with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to create made-to-order DVDs of some of the studio's movies and TV shows. The agreement, whose terms were not disclosed, boosts Palo Alto-based HP's ambition to play the middleman in the future of how entertainment is distributed.

Thousands of Southern Californians were no doubt clutching their seats while watching "Cloverfield," last weekend's No. 1 movie at the box office. At least a few of them were clutching their stomachs as well. Since the movie opened last Friday, some patrons said they experienced nausea and dizziness while watching the horror flick, much of which was filmed with a herky-jerky, hand-held cameras.

Tuesday morning, National Geographic Cinema Ventures, the company releasing the rock concert movie "U2 3D," said it was moving up the picture's expansion to hundreds of theaters by one day to Valentine's Day -- "in keeping with the universe-as-one theme that U2 so wonderfully focuses on." Oops. Four hours later the distributor backed off. Because of a "programming conflict," it would wait to go wider until Feb. 15, as originally planned. The conflict was simple: Exhibitors expect Walt Disney Co.'

Brad Renfro had insisted over the phone that he was clean. That's what the teen actor, hot from his performances as a troubled youth with sad eyes in such films as "The Client" and "Sleepers," told director Larry Clark. Clark, one of America's foremost chroniclers of teenage desperation, had just cast Renfro as the lead in "Bully," his true-life tale of a bunch of pot-smoking Florida teenagers who murder the local bully. But then Clark met his 18-year-old star.

Battles between authors and studios over "Hollywood accounting" are nasty, and almost never resolved in favor of the writer. Ernest Hemingway once noted that authors should drive up to the California border and throw their books over a fence while studio officials throw bags of money back over the fence. That, he said, should be the end of the transaction. Some of the biggest names in publishing, however, have ignored this advice.

On paper, "Evan Almighty" looked like a sure thing. A spinoff of Jim Carrey's smash hit "Bruce Almighty," the film starred Morgan Freeman, reprising his role as God, and Steve Carell, one of Hollywood's hottest comedians. But "Evan Almighty" turned out to be a dud, with an estimated $250 million in production and marketing costs and just $173 million in box office revenue. The film's distributor, Universal Studios, is not the only one feeling the pain.

Walt Disney Co. has reached a deal to more than double its stake in Indian TV and movie content maker UTV, the two firms said, underscoring the U.S. entertainment firm's efforts to expand globally. Disney will raise its holding in UTV Software Communications Ltd. to 32.1%, the same level as UTV's founders, from 14.9%, by acquiring 9.35 million shares for 8.05 billion rupees ($203 million).

Larry the Cable Guy's "Witless Protection" is coming out on Academy Awards weekend, but producer J.P. Williams knows the silly crime comedy is a far better bet next year to snag a Golden Raspberry award for dubious achievement than Oscar gold. "We shoot for the Razzies," said Williams, who has built a lucrative empire around Larry, the country fried alter ego of Dan Whitney, and his feller "blue-collar" comedians.