Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sony Pictures Entertainment received court approval to bring Michael Jackson to the big screen, and it set a release date on what just may be the toughest weekend of the year at the U.S. box office. The court's authorization, announced Monday in Probate Court by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff, allows them to edit more than 80 hours of rehearsal and behind-the-scenes footage into a movie. The deal was negotiated last month by Sony Pictures and its sibling unit, Sony Music Entertainment, with the Michael Jackson Estate and AEG Live, producer of the late singer's planned London concert series.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, grappling with slumping DVD sales and a worsening economy, plans to cut about 300 jobs, or about 4% of its workforce, through layoffs and by eliminating open positions, according to a person familiar with the situation. The cuts could come as early as next week, the person said. A Sony spokesman declined to comment. Sony is the latest Hollywood studio to lay off employees, following cutbacks at Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures.

When Lance Armstrong surged to third place overall Monday in the Tour de France, plenty of news crews recorded his heroics. But six of the video cameras trained on the 37-year-old cyclist's surprise breakaway weren't working for any newspaper, magazine, TV station or website -- they were sent by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Hollywood loves beat-the-odds stories, and Sony hopes that Armstrong's return to racing after a 3 1/2 -year absence could prove as enthralling as any make-believe film.

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.

It looks like Paramount Pictures may have found a co-parent for Steven Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's planned "Tintin" movie, which was orphaned after Universal Pictures opted out over financial concerns. Sony Pictures is close to finalizing a deal to pick up half the cost of the 3-D motion-capture film, which is budgeted at $130 million before marketing expenses.

Sony Pictures could begin to look more like Disney. The studio most identified as the home of high-testosterone action flicks aimed at young male audiences -- think "Spider-Man," "Men in Black" and most recently, James Bond -- has aggressive plans to tap into one of the few rising segments of the filmgoing public.

You can't stop the Sony Pictures team on Super Bowl weekend. You can only hope to contain them. For the seventh straight year, the weekend's No. 1 movie belonged to the studio, as the horror flick "The Messengers" topped the romantic comedy "Because I Said So" to lead the U.S. and Canadian box office. The PG-13 movie, produced by Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures and released through Sony's youth-oriented Screen Gems label, hauled in a better-than-expected $14.

Sony Pictures said Relativity Media would provide funds to co-finance the studio's films over the next five years. Relativity Media Holdings I will provide revolving credit to invest in "a majority" of films released by Sony's Columbia Pictures studio. The agreement comes less than a week after Los Angeles-based Relativity Media, led by Ryan Kavanaugh, announced the creation of a film finance fund with money provided by Citigroup Inc.

Penney Finkelman Cox, a veteran animation executive who helped launch Sony Pictures' foray into animation, is stepping down to become a producer for the division, the company announced Friday. The management shake-up follows mounting tensions between Finkelman Cox and Yair Landau, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, over creative control of the animation division.

Wallace and Gromit have a new home in Hollywood. Aardman Features, the Oscar-winning British animation house, is poised to enter a three-year deal to produce animated movies financed and distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment, the companies said Monday. "It's pretty much a unique voice in the world of animation," said Michael Lynton, Sony Pictures chairman and chief executive. The announcement comes two months after DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.