Dodgers Sue Fox Sports, Which Responds That It Will Ask Court To Dismiss Team From Bankruptcy

The Los Angeles Dodgerssued FoxSports on Wednesday, accusing the News Corp-owned network of attempting to”interfere with the sale of the Dodgers and their assets in bankruptcy.” The Dodgers’ goal is to sell the team and its valuable TV rights through separate court-sanctioned auctions to maximize returns. In a sharply worded court response filed Wednesday nightFox said it would ask that the Dodgers be dismissed from bankruptcy, according to the LA Times.Fox slammed Major League Baseball as “Prime Ticket’s former ally” and asserted the only reason Frank McCourt wants to auction the team’s TV rights now is to put “value rightfully belonging to Prime Ticket,in his own pocket” — referring to Fox Sports’ package of programming. The Dodgers’ suit was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, whereFox already has a suit pending against the team for alleged breach of contract in the continuing squabble over TV rights. Responding to the latest development, the Dodgers called Fox “obviously desperate” to prevent an auction that would reveal the “enormous value” of those rights and “lead to a record-smashing sale price for the team and benefit not just the Dodgers but all of baseball.” The same court is overseeing the proposed sale of the team, but the sale agreement reached two weeks ago between Dodgers ownerFrank McCourtandMajor League Baseballhas yet to be filed.In an effort to get McCourt the highest sale price, the Dodgers have asked the court for permission to seek separate bids for the TV rights. The Dodgers’ current TV contract forbids the team from negotiating with anyone but Fox Sports Net Westthrough November 30, 2012 — a provision the team has asked the court to declare unenforceable under bankruptcy laws. The Dodgers suit also seeks damages from Fox Sports for its alleged violation of the automatic stay that shields companies in bankruptcy from their creditors.Fox responded earlier Wednesday to the team’s suit in a statement describing it as”the latest chapter in the current owner’s ongoing scheme to avoid honoring his contractual obligations.” In the team’s filing the Dodgers asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross to bar Fox from taking any act that otherwise interferes with any property rights of the LAD estate, including existing and future media rights in response to a letter Fox Sports sent to the investment bank handling the Dodgers sale demanding that it”cease and desist” from claiming it could solicit bids for the team’s TV rights regardless of the current Fox contract. The Dodgers asserted that theletter constitutes a deliberate attempt by Fox to interfere with the ability of LAD and its advisers, including Blackstone Advisory, to sell LADs assets.The team and media rights for the 2014 season and beyond are going up for sale under a settlement McCourt reached with Major League Baseball under which the league agreed to remain neutral in the fight between the Dodgers and Fox.The creditors committee has voiced concern that any delay in the bankruptcy auctions could jeopardize the sale by opening day next season. The dueling lawsuits further jeopardize that goal.

Warren Littlefield Gathers His Former NBC Team To Commiserate About Nets Plight

He presided over one of the strongest decades in the history of NBC. And over the past 11 years, since he left the peacock network in 2000, former NBC president-turned-producer Warren Littlefield has been keeping in touch with his programming team, hosting get-together dinners every couple of years. His next soiree is coming up next month, on the heels of what has been NBC’s worst fall ratings performance ever. “Come celebrate a time when NBC’s Thursday night was must-see and averaged more than a 1.9,” the invites reportedly read. NBC’s once formidable Thursday lineup that Littlefield and his team made into a powerhouse with the addition of Seinfeld, Friends and ER, has dipped below a 2 rating among adults 18-49 this fall. Last week, the network’s Thursday demo average was a 1.9, last night it slipped to a 1.8. besides a slew of primetime hits, Littlefield’s regime is known for assembling one of the strongest network programming teams ever. Many young executives and assistants under Littlefield, who often attend his biyearly gatherings, went on to run networks, production companies or departments. They include Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly, FX president John Landgraf, Showtime entertainment president David Nevins, former ABC president Steve McPherson, former ABC entertainment president-turned-producer Jamie Tarses, ABC Family EVP Kate Juergens, DreamWorks TV co-head Justin Falvey, Fox’s head of scheduling Preston Beckman, former NBC EVP/Katalyst president and current UMS-based producer Kerey Burke, Rat TV president and former NBC head of drama Chris Conti, former NBC TV Studios head of comedy and Working Title TV president Shelley McCrory and former OWN and Regency TV president Robin Schwartz

'The Descendants': Alexander Payne Goes Behind the curtain of George Clooney Pic

This story first made an appearance within the November. 18 problem from the Hollywood Reporter magazine. "It's difficult to shoot boat moments, it works out," states author-director Alexander Payne inside a resigned deadpan. "I didn't realize that before. Clooney understood it. He stated: 'You hate vehicle work? Boat jobs are vehicle focus on anabolic steroids.' " George Clooney, the star of Payne's new movie The Descendants, certainly understood what he was speaking about: Wolfgang Petersen practically drowned the actor ten years earlier throughout filming from the Perfect Storm. By comparison, the climactic scene Clooney and Payne required to film for Descendants may have been small -- a grieving father and the two kids floating inside a canoe off The island of oahu's Waikiki Beach -- however it needed a lot of heavy equipment and 40 crewmembers on several motorboats rocking in large increases, as well as a preteen actress inside a meltdown and seasick focus pullers. "You're in Hawaii, therefore the weather changes pretty rapidly, and you've got two moving parts simultaneously that aren't controlled by you -- they're controlled through the moon," states Clooney. "It had been frustrating for him while he wanted it simply to become a handful of people heading out having a camera." Payne, 50, pointing his first feature in seven years, typically makes movies which are short on technical complications: His previous film, Sideways, involved two men driving around California's Santa Ynez Valley. But he confesses that on any film, he fears "the frequently unwieldy way of production will hinder the closeness of the items I'm shooting. For this kind of intimate little scene, it had been as if the Marine Corps were performing exercises throughout them." PHOTOS: George Clooney's Career in Pictures However the controlled chaos and uneven waves matched up the turmoil felt by Descendants' central family, the Nobleman, within the wake of private tragedy. Clooney's Matt King is really a effective lawyer and heir to some gorgeous bit of Hawaiian property who must deal with a quartet of sudden challenges: His wife drops right into a coma following a boat accident her absence forces him to navigate a brand new authority role together with his two unmanageable kids his relatives wants him to market their valued landholding and that he finds out that his hurt wife have been getting an affair. Comedy and tears ensue -- and, since this is an Alexander Payne movie, frequently within the same moment. The project took its begin in 2007 when two London agents handed a galley copy from the novel, compiled by native Hawaiian Kaui Hart Hemmings, to Payne's creating partner, Jim Burke. He and Payne loved it and optioned it through their Fox Searchlight deal per week before it hit book shop shelves, though at that time they merely meant to function as producers. Payne, located in Omaha, Neb., was deep into writing a significantly bigger project entitled Downsizing together with his writing-creating partner, Jim Taylor, so Burke hired comedy actor-authors Jim Rash and Nat Faxon (Reno 911!) to tackle the variation. Although numerous filmmakers came knocking and director Stephen Frears demonstrated serious interest, nobody committed. Once Payne recognized Downsizing might have a difficult slog finding financing, he made the decision the time had come revisit pointing, so he dove into Descendants rather. "It had all of the elements -- a pleasant human story someplace and among a category of folks that are unique for any film," states Payne. "I leaped in solid." By This summer 2009, he was focusing on their own adaptation, that was prepared to shoot by March 2010. Within the interim, Payne required two monthlong outings towards the islands to take in the culture, explore locations and select the brain from the novel's author, who had developed within the The island of oahu capital of scotland - Kailua and moved back there 4 years ago, after grad school. "I make narrative films, however i greatly possess the attitude of the documentarian too, what exactly the thing is during my fiction films has great resemblance to real existence," states Payne, that has modified the books Election, About Schmidt and Sideways for that giant screen. "Descendants may be the book I've been most faithful to and many including the author since it's her world. It had been a stretch for me personally, and that i wanted to have it right." PHOTOS: 'Descendants' Star and THR's Next Gen Class of 2011 Once Payne asked Hemmings in to the process like a "guide," she considered in on potential locations, local conversational phrasings, wardrobe options as well as which extra supplies should portray natives. She wasn't shy about adding dialogue suggestions, either. The evening of her 33rd birthday, she stopped through the director's accommodation to go over the script and offered a type of dialogue for Sid (Nick Krause), the unaware teen who's dating King's older daughter: "I'd put his nuts on the dresser and bang all of them with a spiked softball bat." At that time, Payne was noncommittal. "And today it's within the movie!" states Hemmings. "It's my proudest moment." Hemmings also unintentionally designed a larger contribution. "Alexander requested me whom I saw within the role, and my first answer was George Clooney," she states. Because it happened, Clooney, 50, had wanted to utilize Payne because the filmmaker handed down him for that Thomas Haden Chapel role in Sideways. Since that time, Payne have been busy creating and writing projects (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Ray) and finalizing the divorce from actress Sandra Oh. However when Payne, script in hands, met with Clooney again in the Toronto Worldwide Film Festival in fall 2009, the actor with excitement came onto play what he calls a "schlub," an psychologically detached guy who are able to't even win a disagreement together with his teenage daughter. Shailene Woodley, 19, and Amara Burns, 11, who play King's kids, travelled to The island of oahu ten days prior to the 10-week shoot to build up a credible family dynamic with Clooney. "Used to do play a doctor on the show for 5 years, and so i have labored with kids a great deal,Inch states the first kind star of ER. "You simply spend plenty of time together so that they feel at ease enough to provide you with a difficult time." Related Subjects George Clooney Alexander Payne The Descendants Honours Season Preview 1 2 next last

'Breaking Dawn' Cast Joins MTV Live At Red Carpet Premiere!

FROM MTV MOVIES: The echoes of MTV News' "Breaking Dawn" live stream event with Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner are still reverberating through Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, but MTV News is already getting set to do it all over again. On Monday, November 14, at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.com, host Josh Horowitz will be streaming live for two hours from the red-carpet premiere of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1" outside L.A.'s Nokia Theatre. That means we'll once again be talking to Pattinson, Stewart and Lautner, as well as the rest of your favorite "Twilight" stars. It's all happening just days before the film arrives in theaters on November 18. Read the full story at MTV Movies!

Report: Bradley Cooper Not in 'The Guy From U.N.C.L.E.'

A week ago, Vulture reported that Joel Edgerton was up for among the two lead roles in Steven Soderbergh's 'The Guy From U.N.C.L.E.,' most probably opposite Bradley Cooper who was simply offered negligence Napoleon Solo. About this: TheWrap states that Cooper is no more in discussions for that part, meaning Warner Bros. has returned at where you started with 'U.N.C.L.E.' Not to imply, just saying: this really is becoming a mans version of 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.' That isn't a positive thing. [via TheWrap] [Photo: Getty] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook RELATED

Carson fund to learn U of Nebraska students

And here's Johnny's scholarship The John W. Carson Foundation, named for your "Tonight Show" host and U of Nebraska alum, has gifted $millions of for the U of Nebraska Foundation to create the Johnny Carson Chance Scholarship Fund. Gold gold coin aims to assist students who graduated in the Nebraska secondary school and so are presently registered for UN's Hixson-Lied College of a good and Undertaking Arts. Preference will be provided to students inside the School of Theater and Film, which was re-named for Carson after his dying in 2005. In 2004, Carson themselves led greater than $5 million to assist film and theater programs within the college, also to renovate and expand the Temple Building that houses Hixson-Lied's theater program. Carson's estate gave yet another $5 million in 2005, carrying out a TV icon's dying. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com

'J. Edgar' Star Leonardo DiCaprio's Approaching Biopics Include 'Bond' Creator, Roosevelt

If Leonardo DiCaprio accumulates an Oscar nomination for his role because the enigmatic mind from the FBI in "J. Edgar," that can make him two-for-two with Academy Award nominations and biopics. (We will not count "Catch Me If You're Able ToInch since it centered on Tom Hanks' character almost around Frank Abagnale, Junior.) Since he was nominated in 2005 for his role as Howard Hughes in "The Aviator," many other biopic projects make head lines with DiCaprio's title mounted on star. A lot of came up, actually, it's been tough to keep an eye on all of them -- so we have put together a listing from the biopics DiCaprio's been a minimum of pointed out with. Try them out beyond the jump! "Fleming" In 2008, DiCaprio started creating a biopic in line with the existence of Ian Fleming, the writer from the Mission Impossible books. The script under went one re-write, along with a rival project put their hands up roughly annually later. Very little continues to be been told by the project in 2 years. "Sinatra" When Martin Scorsese grew to become mounted on a Frank Sinatra biopic, DiCaprio's title was instantly batted around to defend myself against the role of Old Blue Eyes. With "Silence" poised as Scorsese's next, it might be some time before we have seen if DiCaprio will require towards the mic. "The Wolf of Wall Street" An infinitely more low-key biopic, this financial drama DiCaprio's Appian Strategy is developing is dependant on Jordan Belfort's memoir. "Wolf" follows Belfort's rise to stock exchange fame and the eventual and spectacular fall. "Demon within the Whitened City" Though not technically a biopic, this thriller concentrates on two historic figures, one of these was Dr. H.H. Holmes, the well known serial killer. DiCaprio continues to be rumored for around annually because the primary contender for that dark role. "The Imitation Game" Within the suggested Alan Turing biopic, DiCaprio would take part in the math wizzard accountable for the decoding and smashing the Nazi file encryption throughout The Second World War. "An Upswing of Theodore Roosevelt" Another lengthy-in-development Scorsese project, this film in line with the early many years of the Rough Driver had DiCaprio's title attached the moment the famous director grew to become involved. It appears that where one goes, another soon follows. Which biopic do you want to see DiCaprio in? Tell us within the comment below as well as on Twitter!