Usa Films

Scott Greenstein is expected to head a combined specialty film division of USA Networks Inc. and Universal Pictures, according to sources familiar with the matter. Greenstein is chairman of USA Films, which won accolades for 2000's "Traffic" and last year's "Gosford Park," directed by Robert Altman, which has seven Oscar nominations. Greenstein will report to Universal Pictures Chairwoman Stacey Snider. Under the change, expected to be announced in the next month, Universal Focus and the U.S.

While "Cast Away" and "What Women Want" remained America's top two-grossing pictures over the weekend, it was the surprisingly strong showing of "Traffic" that had Hollywood talking Monday. Steven Soderbergh's fast-paced drama about America's ongoing drug war grossed $15.5 million as the USA Films release expanded in its second weekend to 1,510 screens and a per-screen average of $10,262.

Watch this week to see if Tina Turner's farewell concert tour will be simply the best of 2000. As the year draws to a close, the music industry is turning its eye to the bottom-line winners and losers, and one of the key yardsticks is the annual Pollstar magazine ranking of top-grossing concert tours.

Universal Pictures is starting a division to handle specialty films, an increasingly lucrative business for studios that have found they can make sizable profits from independent movies, the Seagram Co. unit said Monday. The company named former Gramercy Pictures executive Claudia Gray and Paul Hardart, a strategic-planning executive with Universal, to run the unit. Gray was named executive vice president, Hardart senior vice president.