Sony Pictures Entertainment

The famous torch lady of Columbia Pictures Entertainment Co. got a new moniker Wednesday as the board unanimously voted to rename the company Sony Pictures Entertainment. The name change is designed to lessen confusion between the parent company and its two subsidiaries--Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures. It also raises the profile of Sony Inc., the Japanese electronics giant that acquired Columbia for $3.4 billion in 1989.

Google Inc.'s YouTube dramatically expanded its movie rental service with the addition of 3,000 titles from major Hollywood studios, positioning the dominant online video service to capitalize on the growing number of Internet-connected televisions and portable devices. YouTube head Salar Kamangar notified the site's estimated 105 million U.S. users via a blog post Monday that they would be able to watch "full-length blockbuster films," read reviews and catch behind-the-scenes videos on the site.

Peter Parker can catch all sorts of villains in his webs, but the one thing Spider-Man couldn't bring to Sony Pictures was a workable script -- and budget -- for the $2.5-billion franchise's fourth installment, derailing one of the most lucrative movie series in Hollywood history. Less than a week after the studio said it was postponing production on the fourth web-slinger movie over story problems, Sony on Monday pulled the plug on the project as it was being conceived with director Sam Raimi after he told the studio he wasn't comfortable moving forward with the sequel, originally scheduled for release in May 2011.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is laying off 450 people, more than 6.5% of its workforce, as part of a studio-wide belt-tightening blamed on the growth of piracy and changing media consumption patterns, particularly the ongoing downturn in DVD sales. In a memo to Sony Pictures' roughly 6,800 employees Monday, Chairman Michael Lynton and Co-Chairman Amy Pascal said most of the layoffs would hit the home entertainment and information technology divisions in the U.S. But all business units would be affected, they said, including motion pictures, television, digital production and corporate operations.

Former Walt Disney Co. executive Michael Lynton is expected to be named chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, sources familiar with the situation say. At the same time, Amy Pascal, who heads Columbia Pictures, will be promoted to chairwoman of Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, the sources say. Lynton and Pascal would run the studio in partnership, both reporting to New York-based Sony Corp. of America Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer.

Sony Pictures Entertainment said Jerry Giaquinta, executive vice president of corporate communications, will leave the studio at the end of the year to start a marketing and communications company for technology and entertainment firms.

Drawing crowds: The Tribeca Film Festival announced a total attendance of just less than 400,000 at this year's festival. Event organizers estimated a ticketed attendance of more than 155,000 to 700 screenings and 14 panel discussions throughout the festival, which ran April 23 through May 4. -- Good deeds: The Simon Wiesenthal Center is honoring Amy Pascal, co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment and chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion...

Sony Pictures Entertainment Co. formally announced its new management structure, and it looks a lot like the old management structure. The team that helped to create this summer's blockbuster "Spider-Man" will continue to run the studio.

Peter Parker can catch all sorts of villains in his webs, but the one thing Spider-Man couldn't bring to Sony Pictures was a workable script -- and budget -- for the $2.5-billion franchise's fourth installment, derailing one of the most lucrative movie series in Hollywood history. Less than a week after the studio said it was postponing production on the fourth web-slinger movie over story problems, Sony on Monday pulled the plug on the project as it was being conceived with director Sam Raimi after he told the studio he wasn't comfortable moving forward with the sequel, originally scheduled for release in May 2011.

Sony Pictures desperately wanted to release the DVD of the Michael Jackson concert movie "This Is It" for the holiday shopping season but backed down after movie theater owners complained that it would be too soon after the film's theatrical premiere. That thwarted the latest attempt by a Hollywood studio to shorten the "window" between when movies appear in theaters and when they come out on DVD as the industry grapples with a downturn in DVD sales, which have traditionally propped up the movie business.

In late July, a month after Michael Jackson died from the effects of a powerful anesthetic plus other medications, Sony Pictures bid $60 million for a movie after seeing just 97 seconds of footage. That brief clip was a glimpse of more than 100 hours that concert promoter AEG Live shot of the late singer during rehearsals for a planned London concert series called "This Is It." "We had a very strong gut feeling that this could be a cultural event despite the fact that none of us really saw any of the footage before we concluded the deal," said Sony's production president, Doug Belgrad.

As Hollywood continues to look for ways to cut costs amid an array of economic pressures, Sony Pictures has become the latest studio to severely curtail the amount of money it spends to acquire and develop new movie projects. Sony has told in-house producers and the movie community that it will largely hold off on buying new scripts and other source material, such as books, to turn into movies until its new fiscal year begins in April. It also won't be paying writers to start work on many projects recently set up at the studio.

Sony Pictures hopes "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" forecasts a sunny future for its animation business. The $100-million-budget picture, adapted from the 1978 children's favorite storybook about a town where it snows mashed potatoes and rains fruit juice, opens today in 3,120 theaters. It's the first major computer-animated release from Sony since the 2007 box-office flop "Surf's Up" and signals the studio's latest attempt to enter the lucrative market for family movies. Seven years after launching its animation unit, Sony Pictures is still trying to find its footing in a fiercely competitive environment dominated by more established studios in family entertainment, notably Walt Disney Co.'s Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. and News Corp.

Aiming to create a cinematic happening for its newly acquired Michael Jackson movie, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced Thursday that "Michael Jackson: This Is It" will be released in a limited two-week run, and moved up its opening by two days to Oct. 28. In an attempt to stoke fan anticipation for the film, the studio is taking the unusual step of putting tickets on sale Sept. 27, more than a month before the film arrives at multiplexes. The movie draws on more than 80 hours of behind-the-scenes and rehearsal footage shot in the buildup to Jackson's sold-out London concerts, which were to begin last month.

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.

Over the weekend, Sony Pictures emerged as the front-runner in a frenzied bidding war to acquire Hollywood's hottest entertainment property: film rights to footage from Michael Jackson's rehearsals for his "This Is It" comeback concert series.