Movie Producers

"Seventeen-eighteen years old, I was a fan of Lindbergh," says Cubby Broccoli, the producer of 16 James Bond pictures, the most popular film series of all time. The one-time teen-aged truck farmer sips the morning coffee his butler poured for him under blue skies in the interior courtyard of his townhouse just off Fifth Avenue. "I read Lindbergh's gonna try to fly the Atlantic--all alone. The Lone Eagle.

Early Tuesday morning, Metta World Peace was awakened to a bizarre scenario. "I'm in my underwear and my son says, 'Hey dad, there's police at the door,'" World Peace said in an interview with The Times after the Lakers beat the Boston Celtics on Wednesday evening. "So I jump out, I'm nervous. I see these police with rifles and scopes. "I'm like, 'What happened?' I don't know what's going on at this point. 'What happened, what happened?' And then the police was like, 'The building is being taken over by guys downstairs.'" Apparently the guys downstairs were three actors in a movie that World Peace's company, Artest Media Group, is producing about life on the streets.

EDWARD BASS has a resume that would make any novice movie producer envious: four films in two years, with his latest, "Bobby," garnering early award season buzz with its all-star cast that includes Oscar winners Anthony Hopkins and Helen Hunt, along with Sharon Stone, Demi Moore and Martin Sheen.

After the coffee. Before finding out why we don't have Columbus Day off. The Skinny: You know baseball has an older demographic when every other advertisement during the games is for Viagra. Monday's headlines include a recap of the weekend box office, a look at how video on demand is becoming a viable option for indie producers, speculation about who will succeed Barry Meyer as head of Warner Bros. Entertainment, and how Michael Strahan is taking over morning TV. Daily Dose: Satellite broadcaster Dish Network struck a deal to continue distributing TV stations owned by Gannett.

This summer, moviegoers will flock to theaters to see the Man of Steel battle archnemesis Lex Luthor in "Superman Returns." But the $200-million-plus comic book extravaganza also marks another drama-filled return: the reemergence of movie producer Jon Peters. He was the onetime hairdresser whose romance with Barbra Streisand led to an almost unfathomable ascent to blockbuster producer and then studio power broker. His messy 1991 departure as co-chairman of Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc.

One of Hollywood's biggest movie producers sued Universal Studios for fraud Wednesday, alleging that he was cheated out of money on the Kevin Spacey movie "K-Pax" because Universal botched the foreign distribution of the film.

A producer of the Oscar-winning films "The Pianist" and "Schindler's List" was charged with influence peddling, deepening a bribery scandal that has gripped Poland. Lew Rywin, 58, is accused of soliciting a $17.5-million bribe from Agora SA, the publisher of the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, in exchange for his lobbying the government for favorable media laws that would allow Agora to buy a nationwide broadcaster.

Film producer Peter Hoffman was fined $5,000, but will not have to serve any jail time or have any probation imposed on him as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false tax return. For 1989, Hoffman filed a return understating his taxable income by about $33,000. The fine, imposed by U.S. District Judge John G.

The article appeared in the Oct. 26, 1992, issue of the New Yorker. Under the heading "Crisis in the Hot Zone," it told the story of a U.S. Army biological strike team's race in 1989 to stop one of the world's deadliest viruses from escaping into an American city. Army volunteers in spacesuits had entered a company in Reston, Va.

Movie producer Elie Samaha's lawyers are seeking a court order to seal financial and other records emerging in his escalating dispute with a German financier of his films. In a hearing scheduled Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, Samaha's attorneys are asking for a protective order to treat as confidential numerous documents, testimony and information related to films produced by Samaha's Franchise Pictures.

An actress who starred in “Innocence of Muslims” has sued the film's producer and YouTube, claiming that clips from the controversial anti-Islam movie have lead to death threats against her. In a complaint alleging fraud, slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Cindy Lee Garcia said that after scenes from “Innocence of Muslims” posted on YouTube sparked Middle East protests early...

At 20th Century Fox Studios in the 1960s, Lillian Gallo earned the nickname Mrs. Average America. She turned out to be anything but. Then a producer's assistant, she was asked to screen the dailies of nearly every television show in the Fox pipeline. She was unafraid to express genuine emotion, Gallo later recalled, so if she laughed or cried during a scene, producers believed the heartland would follow. By the early 1970s she was producing TV movies and breaking ground for women in the industry.

A movie producer who made low-level passes over the Santa Monica Pier in a Cold War-era military jet went to jail Wednesday for flying an aircraft in a manner that endangered lives and property. Having lost his appeal, David G. Riggs, 48, surrendered to authorities at Los Angeles County Superior Court and began serving a 60-day sentence imposed by Judge Harold I. Cherness in June 2010. Cherness further ordered Riggs to clean beaches for 60 days and pay more than $6,000 in penalties and court fees.

Brad Miska has been running his fan site Bloody Disgusting out of his North Hollywood home for years, catering to horror enthusiasts with reviews, message boards and contests. But now he's trying something much bigger: producing and distributing low-cost movies. This weekend, Bloody Disgusting is releasing its first major title, "The Woman," which it acquired on the heels of the film's buzzed-about screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Bloody Disgusting hopes that its grass-roots brand and expertise will give it a bit of edge as it competes against much larger players, including studios, that have millions to spend.

John Calley, a former top executive at Warner Bros., United Artists and Sony Pictures Entertainment and a producer whose credits include "The Remains of the Day" and "The Da Vinci Code," has died. He was 81. Calley died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles after a long illness, according to Steve Elzer, a spokesman for Sony Pictures. Highly regarded by Hollywood's creative community, Calley in 2009 was named the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

"Glee," Fox's breakout musical series about a group of misfit high schoolers, has become a sensation in its two years on the air. It's earned an army of hard-core fans who identify themselves as "Gleeks" and charted more Billboard Hot 100 hits than any recording artist in history — including Elvis. Now, the show's creative team is attempting to bring its magic to the multiplex with a new 3-D concert film opening Friday. Directed by Kevin Tancharoen and culled from two Izod Center shows in East Rutherford, N.J., "Glee: The 3D Concert Movie" features series regulars such as Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith, and is aimed to appeal to fans with its collection of musical numbers and dressing-room interviews.

ON A MILD SUNDAY last summer, a string of "popping sounds" drifted through the lazy night air of Beverly Hills around 10 o'clock. "I didn't think anything of it," said Tom Zlotow, a neighbor who soon learned that the noises he'd heard from the house right behind his were echoes of the most sensational crime in the history of Beverly Hills. "I didn't even think it could be gunfire, especially around here."

Imperial Bank worked with flamboyant movie producer Elie Samaha to defraud a German company that is alleging Samaha inflated film budgets to force the firm to pay a larger chunk of Samaha's film costs, said court papers filed Tuesday.

Two movie producers could soon put their own footprints on one of Hollywood's most famous landmarks, Grauman's Chinese Theatre. A partnership between Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures parent company Viacom Inc. has agreed to sell the historic theater on Hollywood Boulevard for an undisclosed sum to Don Kushner, executive producer of "Tron: Legacy," and entrepreneur Elie Samaha, two people familiar with the deal said Thursday. The sale, which is scheduled to close May 20, also includes the operating lease for the Mann's Chinese 6 multiplex in the adjacent Hollywood & Highland mall, said the people, who did not want to be identified because details of the deal were confidential.

On his business cards, Marvin Eisenman called himself a "film detective," but to the unofficial Hollywood network that benefited from his unusually large personal collection of videos and DVDs, he was simply Marvin of the Movies. Over the last quarter-century, the retired grocery store manager had amassed about 42,000 titles while indulging in a hobby that had grown "far past" an addiction, he often said. Movie stars, producers and scholars searching for a rare or obscure film often came calling.