Warner Bros Sets Date For Zac Efron-Starrer The Lucky One

Warner Bros stated today it finds a spot for its Zac Efron movie The Lucky One, which is launched August. 24, 2012. The romantic drama according to Nicholas Sparks’ novel stars Efron like a Marine who survives three around Iraq, attributing his best of luck to some photo he transported of the lady he doesn’t know. When he returns towards the U.S., he sets to find her. Scott Hicks is pointing Taylor Schilling also stars. Denise DiNovi and Kevin McCormick are creating.

Broadway To Shutter As Irene Approaches

All of Broadway will go dark Saturday and Sunday as Hurricane Irene approaches the East Coast and New York braces for winds, rain and potential flooding during the weekend. It will be the biggest emergency shutdown of the Great White Way since Sept. 11, 2001, and already the city has ordered mandatory evacuations in low-lying areas and will shut down the transit system by noon ET Saturday. Disney Theatrical Productions was the first organization to announce its plans today, saying its productions Mary Poppins and The Lion King wouldn’t run, and the Broadway League followed soon after with its plan. Playbill reports that about 23 productions are affected by the shutdown, including Tony winners War Horse and The Book of Mormon. Major League Baseball also has taken action, postponing a pair of New York Mets weekend games and adjusting scheduled games in Boston and Philadelphia. Nikki will have more on Irene’s impact in her Box Office Report coming shortly.

Seeking Transgender Actors

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Scott Pointing New Edge Runner Entry!

Yup, it's on.... Here's something we wager you will not have experienced coming. While there's been lots of chatter lately in regards to a new Edge Runner film, whether it is prequel, follow up or whatever, now comes the slightly shocking word from Deadline that no lesser guy than original Runner director Ridley Scott has signed onto craft and convey the brand new instalment. Only at that initial phase, the particulars continue to be fuzzy beyond Scott's participation. There is no author attached yet and zero story info. Actually, there is no sign whether this can represent a follow-as much as the initial film or something like that more like Scott's current project, the Alien-adjacent prequel Prometheus. Another large real question is whether Harrison Ford is going to be involved as hard-bitten future detective Ron Deckard, though the thought of Scott and Ford working together once again to create another chapter from the man's existence towards the screen is unquestionably a tempting prospect. Still, almost always there is the possibility of creating a mistake by attempting to replicate (pun intended) what made the initial right into a memorable cult hit that flopped if this opened up initially but has, obviously, grown to become legend from the genre. Alcon Entertainment nabbed the privileges towards the Edge Runner concepts earlier this March and introduced the intent to create new films in line with the 1982 original. With Scott involved, we are more hopeful that something good are now able to come of the, though still waiting to determine what goes on. Deckard in three dimensional? Might happen, given how Prometheus has been shot...

Inarritu Up For The Revenant

Attached to the revenge dramaAlejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is no stranger to difficult subjects, having directed the likes of 21 Grams, Amores Perros and Babel. So it makes a lot of sense that Warner Bros. would want to attach him to dark revenge drama The Revenant. Adapted by Mark L Smith from Michael Punke's novel, the plot follows real-life frontiersman and fur trapper Hugh Glass, who is left for dead by his companions after a bear attack in the 1820s. Though two men volunteer to bury what everyone assumes is his corpse, they instead rob and then desert him in the freezing cold of South Dakota. Fuelled by rage and driven by revenge, Glass survives and sets out on a 3,000-mile mission to get back at those who have wronged him. Revenant has been something of a troubled child for filmmakers, since it was originally set up by Park Chan-Wook with Samuel L Jackson in the lead. Then word arrived that The Road's John Hillcoat would tackle it and that Christian Bale was seriously considering nearly dying to research the main role (okay, not the research, but he was interested in playing Glass). Hillcoat, however, instead focused on crime saga The Wettest County in the World and Bale never committed. Can Inarritu get it made? Well, he does know a lot about working with smaller budgets, so he can likely pull off the tricky tale for a more appealing price pleasing to the studio's bean counters. But given the history of this one, we'll wait and see...

Anne Hathaway And Jim Sturgess Answer To The 'Yes/No Show'

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another installment of MTV News' famous After Hours hit, The Yes/No Show, with this week's special guests, "One Day" stars Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. As fans of the previous editions of the show, Hathaway and Sturgess knew exactly what to expect when MTV's Josh Horowitz wheeled in his brand new podium for The Yes/No Show. And, as they noticed, the production value has gotten better since previous episodes. Thanks, loyal following! So does Anne Hathaway own pornography? Are either of them on prescription drugs? Does Jim Sturgess mind if MTV mispronounces his name? All answers will be revealed in the above interview. Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below or on Twitter!

Republican Presidential Debate Scores Big Ratings For Fox News Channel

There was something hotter than fried butter on a stick coming out of Iowa this week -- Fox News Channel's ratings for last night's Republican Presidential Debate. The two-hour debate drew 5.1 million viewers, 1.4 million of them in the 25-54 demographic. It was by far the highest rated presidential debate this year -- up 55% in viewers and 67% in 25-54 from the May 5 debate on FNC and up 158% in viewers and 178% in 25-54 compared to the May 13 debate on CNN. FNC obviously dominated the 9-11 PM primetime block last night. Here are the numbers: P 2+ P 25-54 Network Time AA (000) AA (000) FOXN 9P -11P 5053 1432 CNN 9P -11P 667 233 MSNB 9P -11P 756 239 CNBC 9P -11P 102 27 HLN 9P -11P 560 158

AMC Systems Reviews Greater Profit in First Quarterly Results separate Company

NEW You are able to - AMC Systems reported a greater second-quarter operating profit and enhanced internet profit in the first quarterly financials like a stand alone company, but make money from ongoing procedures rejected slightly. AMC shares rose a lot more than 5 % at the begining of Thursday buying and selling. The cable systems operator, that was spun removed from cable operator Cablevision Systems mid-year, published a practical profit of $82 million, up 14.8 percent in the year-ago period. The organization's $27.two million in quarterly net gain in comparison with $22.a million around-ago period. Concentrating on ongoing procedures, which excludes this news 12 and Rainbow Advertising Sales companies that continued to be with Cablevision following the spin-off which demonstrated enhanced leads to the most recent quarter, profit rejected from $31 million to $27 million though. "The decrease resulted from $20 million of costs associated with the redemption of debt regarding the the spin-removed from Cablevision partly offset by cutbacks in interest expense and tax expense," the organization described. Second-quarter revenue rose 12.3 % to $292 million driven with a 21.2 percent advertising revenue improvement. Who owns the AMC, IFC, Sundance Funnel and that we television channels, is brought by leader and Boss Josh Sapan. The Dolan family, which controls Cablevision, also controls AMC Systems. "Having a record 31 Primetime Emmy nominations this season, we continue to pay attention to trading in quality original programming they are driving rankings, differentiate our brands and supply value to the marketers and marketers," Sapan stated in the organization's earnings report. Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com Twitter: @georgszalai Related Subjects

'The X Factor': Simon Cowell Wanted Mariah Carey on Judges' Panel

John Shearer/Getty ImagesMariah Carey The X Factor's Simon Cowell confirmed Friday he had his eye on singer Mariah Carey to become listed on the Fox reality series judges' panel. "She has been very passionate concerning the show, however she selfishly became pregnant, and that's why she didn't finish as a judge," Cowell stated Friday in the Television Experts Association's summer time press tour stay in Beverly Hillsides. THR's TCA Coverage Carey delivered twins with husband Nick Cannon on April 30. Cowell, showing up via satellite, noted that Carey would likely likely join the singing competition series sooner or later, potentially like a mentor for among the four teams featured on the program but rejected to supply additional particulars. Cowell told The Hollywood Reporter in May that that "All she needs to do is call me, and I'll exercise an offer. I believe she'll possess a presence on a single of my shows." Fielding an issue concerning the pending suit between The American Idol Show creator Simon Larger and Fox over costs for X Factor, executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz noted that "legal cases are the price of conducting business within this country," without supplying further comment. Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com Twitter: @Snoodit Mariah Carey Simon Cowell The X Factor TCA Summer time Press Tour 2011

For Medavoy, political passion is personal

Producer Mike Medavoy, right, on the set of 'All the King's Men' (2006) with political analyst James Carville, says he takes 'American citizenship fairly seriously.'For some on the Left Coast side of the Washington-Hollywood axis, political support of candidates might be considered good citizenship and conscience after a nasty day at the office. But for Mike Medavoy, it's somewhat different.First, here's a bit of context for Medavoy's several decades of support of Democratic candidates: Medavoy became a U.S. citizen in 1963, having been raised in the Jewish enclave of Shanghai by parents who had fled the anti-Semitic wave in the Soviet Union and, then, as a teen in the 1950s in Chile. English is his second language."So, yeah, I take American citizenship fairly seriously," he says, "which is something pretty common among people who've immigrated here."Second, because he experienced his share of want growing up, Medavoy also takes seriously the need for a country to look after its poor. "That's why I'm a Democrat," he says flatly, adding that this doesn't mean "that I could never vote for a Republican under the right circumstances."And as a student of politics and history stemming from his undergrad days at UCLA in the 1960s, Medavoy is able to view the current Washington debate between the parties over just about everything as "part of our history, which goes all the way back to the debate between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over a strong federal government versus states' rights. That philosophical debate hasn't really changed, but the pressures are different now, and I'm worried about them."Just as he displayed a knack for spotting filmmaking talent early in their careers, such as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, John Milius and Terrence Malick, Medavoy spotted hot Colorado Sen. Gary Hart early as a potential presidential candidate in 1983. "I never was in the role of giving large donations to a candidate -- I didn't have that kind of money. What I decided that I could do was serve as a matchmaker, and help bring others in touch with a candidate who I thought could help the country. Gary was the first."Hart's brand of progressive politics, combining classic liberal policies with a view for innovations in energy, transportation, technology and education, perfectly suited Medavoy's own world view: "A quote I heard somewhere pretty much sums it up for me, and to paraphrase, it's that an enterprise today must have a technological component as well as a social component. It's as important to understand this in politics as it is in the entertainment industry."I really believed in Hart, and think that his enormous talents have been unfairly ignored by both the Clinton and Obama administrations."The Hart campaign, Medavoy notes, was also his way of following in the footsteps of Arthur Krim, a legendary Democratic fundraiser and leader in the film industry, and with whom Medavoy worked at UA and Orion. "Arthur was hugely influential for me," says Medavoy, "but his accomplishments as a humanitarian and as supporter of the Democrats far outweighs what I've accomplished."Nevertheless, Medavoy -- ever the scout of talent -- managed quite a feat when in 1991 he was the first important Hollywood supporter of then-obscure Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. "I thought immediately that he was terrific politician who knew what he wanted to do, and had a forward-thinking view of the country"Medavoy considers President Obama in much the same way as Clinton, but with a twist: "Obama is the first 21st Century president. I think the rest of the current batch of politicians is still in the 20th century. We need someone who's facing the new century, and against all of these headwinds he's experiencing, I think he's managing to do it."Still, Medavoy bemoans the current state of things in his adopted country, from the lack of efforts to build the kind of infrastructure he's recently witnessed in China (where's he's preparing a mini-series, "Shanghai," set in the revolutionary period) to "this gigantic education gap we're seeing between a small, well-educated elite and a mass group of kids who probably couldn't spot Chile on a map.""When 20 million American children are living in motels and cars and can't even get a decent breakfast or lunch, how can we accept this while the richest people won't pay an additional 3% in taxes?"Billion-Dollar Producer: Mike Medavoy International man of mastery | Medavoy plows past for projects | For Medavoy, politics are personal | Mike Medavoy's highlight reel Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

'Curiosity' Exclusive Preview: Stephen Hawking Takes on Creation (Video)

Discovery Channel's new series, Curiosity, isn't pulling any punches. In its first episode, world-renowned astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, tackles mankind's most complicated question: Who or what created the universe? STORY:Discovery's 'Curiosity' Premiere to Get Cross-Network Simulcast (Exclusive) It's a question that scientists as well as theologians have tried to answer for centuries and Hawking examines the possible answers in Curiosity's premiere episode asking, "Did God Create the Universe?" airing Sunday, Aug. 7 at 8 p.m. Stick around after the premiere episode when Discovery Channel presents a special roundtable discussion at 9 p.m. featuring well-known theologians challenging Hawking's findings and theories, the mysteries at the heart of the cosmos, and how science and religion can coexist. The series' 60 episodes will answer questions spanning science, technology, and society. In addition to Hawking, the series' hosts include Morgan Freeman, Michelle Rodriguez, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Spurlock, Adam Savage, Mike Rowe, Brendan Fraser, Eli Roth, and Robin Williams. Watch THR's exclusive sneak peeks at the premiere above and below. Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter:@TheRealJethro Discovery Channel Discovery Communications