Studio Executives

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

Mo Rothman, a veteran studio executive who helped pave the way for Charlie Chaplin to end an acrimonious, two-decade exile from the United States and returned some of the filmmaker's classic movies to American screens, died Sept. 15 in Los Angeles. He was 92. Rothman had Parkinson's disease, his family said. Rothman had met Chaplin in the 1950s when he was a European manager for United Artists. Chaplin, one of the founders of United Artists along with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, was one of Hollywood's most powerful and creative figures until his image was tarnished by affairs with underage women and his leftist politics, which made him a target of McCarthy-era Communist hunters.

Representatives of the two Hollywood actors unions met Monday with top studio executives to discuss upcoming labor talks, but set no timetable to start formal negotiations, representatives from both sides said. Officials from the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists used the Encino meeting to outline their major issues.

Laura Ziskin, a veteran film producer who helped break Hollywood's glass ceiling for women, has died. She was 61. Ziskin died Sunday of breast cancer at her home in Los Angeles, said a spokesman at Sony Pictures, where she had a producing deal and made many of her movies in recent years. Ziskin, who had fought a seven-year battle with the disease, also founded a nonprofit televised event, Stand Up to Cancer, that has raised more than $200 million for cancer research. Best known for producing all the films in the "Spider-Man" franchise — including the upcoming release "The Amazing Spider-Man" — Ziskin had a profound effect on what contemporary moviegoers watch.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, responding to calls that he get involved in the Hollywood writers' strike, which had reached its eighth day, held a private meeting with union officials Monday, a spokesman said. The governor was scheduled to have a similar, informal sit-down with unidentified studio executives today, said his press secretary, Aaron McLear. Several studio representatives said they were unaware of any such meeting.

Jack Valenti isn't ready to hit the road just yet. A meeting of top studio executives Monday didn't produce any definitive timetable or plan to find a successor for Hollywood's top lobbyist, although a half-dozen or so names of potential candidates whom executives like were discussed. Sources said there is no consensus at this point, adding that studio executives promised to take up the issue again after Labor Day.

Hollywood's biggest slasher story isn't playing at any theater near you. It's hitting the industry's corporate suites, where the sacking of studio executives has reached epidemic level. As evidenced by Disney's recent firing of its studio chief, Dick Cook, and Universal Pictures' dismissal Monday of chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde, Hollywood is in a state of panic-producing turmoil. It used to be that Hollywood's corporate parents could stomach a dry spell from their studio managers.

THE scene opens with a herd of duckbill dinosaurs gorging on kelp. A Tyrannosaurus rex, towering 22 feet, suddenly appears, unleashing a blood curdling roar as its prey scatter, but one duckbill dinosaur remains trapped in the water. The T-Rex crashes through the surf and ruthlessly rips him from the sea. It suddenly stops -- sensing a powerful presence in the water. Its red reptilian eyes, glowing like lasers, scan the ocean.

NBC announced a shake-up in its Burbank executive ranks, with three high-level programmers pushed out to make room for two studio executives. Katherine Pope, an executive at NBC Universal Television Studio, was named executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, the chief deputy to Entertainment President Kevin Reilly. Pope will be in charge of NBC's new series development. Another studio executive, Jeff Ingold, was named head of NBC's comedy development.

Bush Cancels Paramount Visit: President Bush, who had been scheduled to take a tour of Paramount Studios this morning, instead will visit the new North County Correctional Facility in the hills below Castaic, the White House said. A spokesman said that the studio visit was scrubbed for logistical reasons and that Bush would still be able to talk to studio executives at a breakfast speech Friday before the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Jackie Cooper, whose tousled blond hair, pouty lower lip and ability to cry on camera helped make him one of the top child stars of the 1930s in films such as "Skippy" and "The Champ," has died. He was 88. Cooper, who grew up to become a successful TV star in the 1950s, a top television studio executive in the '60s and an Emmy Award-winning director in the '70s, died Tuesday at a skilled nursing facility in Santa Monica after a brief illness, said his son John. A former "Our Gang" cast member who began his Hollywood career as an extra in silent movies at age 3, Cooper shot to stardom at 8 playing the title role in "Skippy," the 1931 film based on a popular comic strip about a health inspector's son and his ragamuffin pal, Sooky.

Hollywood production is going mobile. Two local technology companies, Sample Digital and Technicolor, have introduced applications that allow production and studio executives to view dailies — scenes from movie and TV shoots — on their iPads. About 15 million iPads were sold last year, and the computer tablets have become wildly popular among studio and production executives, who frequently bring them to creative meetings to take digital notes on screenplays, among other tasks.

When Will Hackner came to Hollywood in 2002 with dreams of becoming a movie producer, it immediately became clear what he had to do. "Through osmosis you quickly learn that you get an internship, become an assistant, then a junior executive and you keep working your way up," the 30-year-old graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts said. It's a career path that has become the stuff of legend: Start off in the mailroom at a talent agency or doing menial tasks for a producer, director or studio executive, and one day you could be one of the empowered few who decide what movies end up on the big screen.

As Mel Gibson's legal and publicity problems mount, his prospects for a future in mainstream Hollywood grow dimmer. Eight minutes of new audio surfaced on Monday capturing Gibson's angry and expletive-laden rant to ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. The recording, which appeared on the website Radar Online, follows an earlier release on the site of a tape in which Gibson uses foul and threatening language toward Grigorieva as well as the N-word. Monday's audio features an increasingly apoplectic Gibson threatening Grigorieva, with whom he's locked in a child custody battle, yelling at her that she needs a "bat to the side of the head" and that he could put her "in a … rose garden" if he wanted to. (Although the audio has not been independently verified by The Times, no one involved in the incident, including representatives from Gibson's camp, has called its authenticity into question.

In a North Hollywood studio, actor Jack McGee is stripped down to his boxers, his legs duct-taped to a chair in a room draped in plastic sheets. He's not playing his best-known role of Chief Jerry Reilly in the TV series "Rescue Me" but the unlucky owner of a nightclub, sweating profusely as a mobster and his goons threaten to cut off his legs with a chain saw. His crime: luring the mobster's younger brother to perform in drag because the kid...

Gareth Wigan, a longtime studio executive who also was a producer and agent, died Saturday at his Los Angeles home after a brief illness, a spokesman for Columbia Pictures said. Wigan was 78. Wigan, born Dec. 2, 1931, in London, began his career as an agent in the late 1950s and moved to California in the 1970s, working as an executive for several Hollywood studios. In the mid-1960s, he formed his own agency, which was sold to EMI in 1970. Wigan next moved to 20th Century Fox. He was a production executive on "Star Wars."

"Star Trek" fans will have to wait a bit longer to see where the crew of the starship Enterprise is boldly going next. The release of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek," with a new cast taking on the roles of Capt. James T. Kirk, Spock and other original characters, has been moved from Christmas Day to May 8, 2009, distributor Paramount said Thursday. Studio spokesman Michael Vollman said "Star Trek" would be finished by fall in time for its original release date, but studio executives decided to hold it until next summer, when the film could pull in more money.

With the Newt Year upon us, why not a Gingrich-inspired "Contract With Hollywood" for studio executives, filmmakers and stars? Here's a suggestion of how one might read: Resolved, that within the first 100 days of returning from Aspen, Vail, Maui and St. Bart, we shall bring up for public discussion these issues, each to be given full and open debate: 1.

In acquiring legendary Universal Pictures, Comcast Corp. would make its Hollywood debut during a particularly turbulent time for the movie business. Not only are all studios grappling with declining DVD sales and shifting consumer habits in entertainment, but Universal is also struggling to correct course from a prolonged box-office slump, runaway production costs and turmoil in the executive suites. Comcast wouldn't be able to exert much influence over the operations of Universal until well into next year after its merger with NBC Universal is finalized.

Hollywood's biggest slasher story isn't playing at any theater near you. It's hitting the industry's corporate suites, where the sacking of studio executives has reached epidemic level. As evidenced by Disney's recent firing of its studio chief, Dick Cook, and Universal Pictures' dismissal Monday of chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde, Hollywood is in a state of panic-producing turmoil. It used to be that Hollywood's corporate parents could stomach a dry spell from their studio managers.