DirecTV, News Corp. Achieve Broad Carriage Deal

NY - Satellite Television giant DirecTV and News Corp. have struck a brand new broad-based carriage deal for any slew from the latter's cable systems, but additionally its broadcast stations, keeping channels from going dark in DirecTV homes by night time PT. The Television stations and systems taught in carriage deal include Forex, National Geographic, 19 regional sports systems, Speed, Fuel TV, Fox Soccer, but additionally Fox Broadcasting and also the Fox local stations and Fox News Funnel together with Fox Business Network. Financial terms and the size of the brand new agreement weren't revealed. It had been thought that only one for reds had in early stages pressed to create together the 2 parties' carriage deals, including one for that Fox broadcast stations, that was set to run out at year's finish, into one agreement. DirecTV had threatened to prevent transporting this news Corp. cable systems if the agreement wasn't arrived at by November. 1. "Both of us be aware of past 10 days happen to be challenging, but we are pleased that each side may ultimately get together to make sure our audiences still enjoy Fox programming," the businesses stated inside a joint statement. A week ago, DirecTV required the carriage dispute towards the FCC. Inside a Thursday letter to William Lake, the mind from the FCC's Media Bureau, the organization had stated that Fox "is applying misleading advertising telling DirecTV clients that "soon, in certain marketplaces, you might lose the local Fox station," despite the fact that our retransmission consent agreement doesn't expire for more than two several weeks." Cablevision Systems inside a large programming dispute with News Corp./Fox late this past year also attempted to create the FCC in to the showdown. Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com Twitter: @georgszalai Related Subjects

Keck's Exclusives: Glee Reveals Sue's Evil Origins

Jane Lynch All I'm saying is it's about damn time. On November 15, Glee will finally reveal why Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) hates musical theater. As the kids prepare to stage West Side Story, "we wanted to show that Sue at one point had Broadway dreams," teases exec producer Ian Brennan. A flashback shows 16-year-old Sue on stage belting out the title song from Oklahoma!, a performance savaged by one brutal critic. "Her little heart was broken," sighs Jane. "Will tells Sue, 'Poor little Susie Sylvester was told she wasn't good, and now she's got to punish the world.' Like a lot of angry people out there, Sue's a wannabe." Glee cast 19-year-old Colby Minifie for the part of young Sue. "I think they did a terrific job casting," raves Jane. "She has a great voice and energy." Also coming up is the election of the students' class president, which coincides with Sue's congressional bid. "People are voting for both elections in the school, with signs pointing voters in different directions," says Ian, who promises that the final results take "a very surprising twist." Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!

The Expletive-Laced, Booze-Soaked History of the 'Rum Diary' Movie

"Arriving half-drunk in a foreign place is hard on the nerves. You have a feeling that something is wrong, that you can't get a grip." -- Hunter S. Thompson, 'The Rum Diary' Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson are sitting in a tiki hut on Depp's property in Los Angeles; a fire is burning in the pit and a bottle of Jack Daniels rests on the table. It's 1999. The movie star and the good doctor have gathered to solicit potential financiers for an adaptation of Thompson's recently published book, 'The Rum Diary.' Holly Sorensen, head of the now defunct studio The Shooting Gallery, approaches. Pleasantries are exchanged and Depp begins reading an excerpt from the novel. "...I lay back on the cot with a bottle of rum resting on my navel, and plotted how to defend myself. If I had a luger, I thought, I could drill the bastards. I lean on one elbow and pointed a finger at the window, seeing what kind of shot I could get. Perfect... " The three of them sit there, talking, laughing, imbibing, and strategizing, with no way of knowing that it will be another 12 years before the movie finally opens. In that time, A-listers will be cast and then drop out; financing will be moved from studio to studio; and one writer-director, who had been sober for six-and-a-half years, will begin drinking again -- all in an effort to bring this boozy pre-Gonzo tale of an American journalist in Puerto Rico to the big screen. It's hardly the path Thompson imagined when he first decided to make the movie. Hell, it's hardly the path he saw when he first began writing 'The Rum Diary,' almost four decades earlier, while living in Puerto Rico. Yes, it's been a long, twisted journey for Hunter S. Thompson's first novel. Thompson, who was in his early 20s when he wrote the book, would say that he wanted 'The Rum Diary' to be the "Great American Novel" -- on par with F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Great Gatsby.' Years later, he admitted that it instead became "the Great Puerto Rican novel," not that there's anything wrong with that. How the 'Rum Diary' book came to be is a story in itself (one that gets a fascinating telling in a recent 'GQ' article), but let's pick up the story in 1999, one year after the book's release. That's when Thompson and his friend Johnny Depp began exploring the idea of turning it into a film. The original plan had been for 'The Rum Diary' to be published before 'Hell's Angels,' Thompson's gripping true-life tale of the renegade California bike gang. But after Thompson moved to the West Coast, in the mid-'60s, friends began pushing him to finish 'Hell's Angels' instead of 'The Rum Diary.' It was raw, emotional and fit inside the New Journalism genre that people had been raving about. 'The Rum Diary' was, comparatively, old-fashioned -- composed in the Hemingway or Fitzgerald vernacular of yesteryear. Eventually, the novel ended up in Thompson's basement, collecting dust. It would be many years later before someone stumbled upon it -- though who that someone was remains a matter of debate. "So many people have claimed to have found the original manuscript," says Anita Thompson, who was married to Hunter during the last years of his life. "He loaned it to ['60 Minutes' correspondent] Ed Bradley at one point, decades ago. There were also different versions of the manuscript, so I think Johnny [Depp] is correct in saying he'd found one version of it. Doug [Brinkley, a historian working with Hunter] found it. [Writer-researcher] Shelby Stadler found it. Various assistants found it." No matter who "rediscovered" the book, there was soon a general consensus that Thompson should publish it, then perhaps turn it into a film, with Johnny Depp starring as the young journalist Paul Kemp. Depp was an obvious choice for the role -- he had already played Hunter (under the alias of Raoul Duke) in 1998's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' a movie based on a series of articles Thompson had written for 'Rolling Stone' magazine in the 1970s. To research the part, Johnny had moved in to Hunter's basement in Colorado, where he stumbled across the 'Rum Diary' manuscript. With heavy interest in the book and one of the biggest stars on the planet in his corner, Thompson decided to forge ahead with the film. To find the right person to make it, he and Depp began holding court at the actor's house in California. Eventually, they settled on Holly Sorensen. Things would soon take a turn for the surreal, as they often did when Thompson was involved. Holly had agreed to help finance the movie, but the slow pace of progress began to irritate the author. Then, in January 2001, Holly received a now infamous fax from Thompson: "Okay, you lazy bitch. I'm getting tired of this waterhead fuckaround that you're doing with 'The Rum Diary.' We are not even spinning our wheels aggressively. It's like the whole project got turned over to zombies who live in cardboard boxes under the Hollywood Freeway. I seem to be the only person who's doing anything about getting this movie made. I have rounded up Depp, Benecio del Toro, Brad Pitt, Nick Nolte, and a fine screenwriter from England named Michael Thomas ... And if you don't do something QUICK [sic], you're going to destroy a very good idea. I'm in a mood to chop yr. [sic] fucking hands off." Was Thompson about to bolt? Was the film in serious danger of not being made? On first (and second, and third) reads, the letter sounds almost fatally threatening. But Anita Thompson and Sorensen herself recall it as a minor bump in the road. "That's, in a way, a hug from Hunter. He was serious, and at the same time, he cared enough to take the time to write a letter, which is a sign that it was important to him," says Anita, who will look to further her late husband's legacy with the soon-to-be-launched Gonzo Foundation. "But he wanted this process to be fun. So when it stopped being fun and came to a grinding halt, he [did] things like that to kick it into action. Sorensen, speaking with filmmaker Wayne Ewing, also chose to accentuate the positive. "[Hunter] was never rude, lectureous -- he was a chivalrous romantic guy ... [We] had a difference of opinion whether Michael Thomas was the right screenwriter for 'the Rum Diary,' that was a big part of the problem. But ... I had a lot of fun with Hunter." If the fax's purpose was to right the ship, however, it failed. Eventually, Benecio del Toro, Nick Nolte and Josh Hartnett all dropped off the project, as did Sorensen and the Shooting Gallery. Then, in 2005, Hunter S. Thompson put a gun to his head and committed suicide. He was 67 years old and plagued by health problems. In a suicide note subsequently published in 'Rolling Stone,' he wrote, "Relax -- This won't hurt." Friends and family gathered at his home in Woody Creek, Colorado to send him off with a proper salute. Thompson's death only strengthened Depp's resolve to honor his late friend by getting the movie made. Soon after the funeral, producer Graham King obtained the rights to the book, and things began moving again. Then, in 2007, Johnny recruited Bruce Robinson, writer-director of the alcohol-drenched cult classic 'Withnail & I,' to write and, ultimately, direct the film. "[Johnny] sent me the book, and I read it, called him up and said, 'Yeah, I'll write the script,'" Robinson tells Moviefone. "Four or five months later, he was back on the line saying, 'Are you going to direct it?' I had determined and promised myself I wasn't going to ever try and be a film director ever again. Period. To be a bullied by a superstar into directing something was a really rare and unusual experience. But Johnny can have whoever the hell he likes, and the fact that he was so confident that I would be the right director for it -- ultimately you acquiesce to that." It's easy to see why Depp was so insistent. Though he'd been sober for six and a half years, Robinson had written and directed one of the great alcohol-fueled adventure tales of all time: 1987's 'Withnail & I,' whose title character, played by Richard E. Grant, scandalizes the patrons of a quiet café by standing and announcing, "We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now!" Try as he might, however, Robinson couldn't seem to find a way into the script. Then he had what can only be described as a Gonzo epiphany: This rum-soaked story needed a jolt of electricity, and the only way it was going to get it was through alcohol. "I was walking around in my writing room for about a month before I could get a hook on [the story], and I realized that I had to go there. I had to go back into that place in my head. I needed to feel the madness again a bit," Robinson says. "[And while] my head is saying, 'Don't go there, don't go there,' the creative side of me is saying, 'If you don't go there, you can't write this.' There's no words in bottles, but it softens it up a bit." Robinson was able to drink, finish the script and then quit. It's as if Thompson's spirit was presiding over the writing process, withholding inspiration until Robinson was willing to risk his sanity -- and even his life. Soon, the script was finished. Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard and Giovanni Ribisi joined the cast, and the film began production in Puerto Rico in 2009. Two years later, Thompson's vision has again been captured on celluloid, his rabid curiosity showing itself off to a new generation of fans. But make no mistake: 'The Rum Diary' is no 'Fear and Loathing Part 2.' There are no lizards crawling up Depp's leg or imaginary bats beating their wings in his face. The novel, after all, was written before Hunter's Gonzo days, when he was still trying to figure out who he was and what he wanted in life. It's a portrait of a man on the verge of something profound, and potentially damaging to the establishment. What precisely it is, he -- or, more specifically, Paul Kemp -- can't quite be sure. But every bottle of rum, glass of wine and vicious, cursing tirade seems to hint at the answer. [Photo: FilmDistrict] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook RELATED

Vampire Diaries Exclusive First Look: Meet Klaus' Mother

Alice Evans Get ready to meet the Original matriarch of The Vampire Diaries. The Vampire Diaries stars: "Ghost World" answers (almost) everything In the eighth episode, titled "Ordinary People" and airing Thursday, Nov.3 at 8/7c on The CW, viewers will get their first glimpse of Esther during a 1,000-year flashback featuring her children Klaus (Joseph Morgan) Elijah (Daniel Gillies) and Rebekah (Claire Holt). Esther, played by Alice Evans, is as fierce as her sons, but longs to protect her family.Plus: Look closely and you'll see that Esther is wearing a very important piece of jewelry. See photos from The Vampire Diaries What new mythology will we learn by meeting Esther? And will this help explain why Klaus is the vampire he is today? The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Putin rejects Lenfilm plan

MOSCOW -- The way forward for Russia's historic Lenfilm Galleries in St. Petersburg continued to be unclear after Pm Vladimir Putin belittled existing intends to modernize the complex, that was founded in 1918. Filmmakers petitioned Putin throughout the summer time in order to save Lenfilm from the multimillion dollar transformation that will have given partial charge of the condition galleries to effective private interests. Now carrying out a ending up in St. Petersburg-based director Alexander Sokurov -- whose latest film "Faust" won the Golden Lion at Venice recently -- Putin stated the studio's future needed a radical re-think. "I actually want to save the studio," Putin stated, based on condition news agency RIA Novosti. "The studio includes a fine tradition which ought to be valued, but everything is more difficult of computer appears initially. There have been many suggestions, but no proposal that's seriously exercised from a fiscal perspective.Inch Conservative estimations put the price of saving Lenfilm -- where falling apart infrastructure and many years of neglect threaten the structure from the galleries -- around $15 million. Sokurov told Putin that around $60 million was required to place the studio back on its ft and causes it to be a main issue with Russia's modern cinema infrastructure. "It might take that to produce a truly great studio," Sokurov stated. The most recent public-private partnership plans, introduced captured by Russia's culture minister, involved a plan to modernise the galleries by using major Russian industrial to media conglomerate AFK Sistema. The organization already is the owner of a recently built studio complex within the city: Russian World Galleries. The plan envisaged departing 25% plus one share of Lenfilm possession in public places hands. The plan was placed on ice captured following a dispute on pricing the studio's assets, including an excellent downtown location in St. Petersburg and valuable film library of classic Soviet-era films. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

SyFy Orders Haunted Schools Reality Series

Syfy already has several reality series concerning the paranormal, brought by Ghost Predators. The cable network has purchased a different one, School Spirits from executive producers Mark Burnett (Survivor) and Seth Jarrett (Celebrity Ghost Tales). The six-episode series will inform true ghost tales of hauntings which have happened at schools across the nation. The tales is going to be told with the recommendations of real students, instructors, parents and staff which have experienced the paranormal activity and motion picture reenactments.

ABC Gives Full Seasons to 'Revenge,' 'Suburgatory' Orders More 'Happy Endings'

ABC"Revenge" ABC is making its first moves throughout this television season, acquiring the trunk nine on two Wednesday evening options: Revenge and Suburgatory. Furthermore, the network has bought six additional scripts for sophomore comedy Happy Being. Revenge, loosely good Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo, remains given an entire 22-episode season. The series, introduced by Emily Van Camping and Madeleine Stowe, remains holding firm within the 10 p.m. slot, calculating 8.8 million total audiences together with a couple.8 rating among grownups 18-49 within the first 72 hours. Its latest episode won the hour inside the demo, topping veteran CBS procedural CSI on the way. PHOTOS: Fall TV Dying Watch: Which New Shows Will Probably Be Axed? Revenge, created by Mike Kelley, concentrates on Emily Thorne (Van Camping), or Amanda Clarke, who returns for the Hamptons to think about revenge on individuals who destroyed her family, including her father's (James Tupper) dying. Gabriel Mann, Henry Czerny, Ashley Madekwe, Josh Bowman, Nick Wechsler, Connor Paolo and Christa B. Allen complete the ensemble cast. The whole order is predicted for Suburgatory, since the rookie series notched a effective ratings performance within the debut on Sept. 28, calculating 9.8 million total audiences together with a 3.3 rating among grownups 18-49, being a effective lead-straight into Modern Family. PHOTOS: ABC's New Fall Tv Shows Starring Jane Levy, Jeremy Sisto and Cheryl Hines, Subugatory involves only one father (Sisto) and teenage daughter (Levy) who go to the and surrounding and surrounding suburbs after dwelling in NY City. Created by Emily Kapnek, the Warner Bros. TV-produced series airs at 8:30 p.m. carrying out a Middle. The additional script order for Happy Being has come about as the comedy notched an 18 percent increase in the previous week, even though evening saw less competition with no X Factor on Fox. The David Caspe-created half-hour series has seen a ratings bump inside the plum publish-Modern Family slot. A year ago, Happy Being adopted a weakened lead-in, Cougar Town -- and saw numerous its episodes broadcast from order. While using pick-ups of Revenge and Suburgatory, ABC's newcomer series join Whitney, Up With The Evening, 2 Broke Women, New Girl, Ringer, Hart of Dixie as well as the Secret Circle in receiving full seasons. The network arrives its ambitious fairytale drama Not such a long time ago later this month and new comedy Guy Up! on Tuesday. What is the news mark ABC chief Paul Lee's first moves to date this season. Revenge Suburgatory

NBC Buys Comedy From Broken Lizard Duo, Adapts Australian Format Laid

NBC has boughtKept Men, a multi-camera comedy from writers-actors Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme, members of the Broken Lizard comedy filmmaking group behind such movies as Super Troopers and Beerfest. Heffernan and Lemme will write the project, which tells he story of two friends who become supported by their respective wives after their business closes down. They also will executive produce with 3 Arts. APA-repped Heffernan and UTA-repped Lemme just wrapped photography on The Babymakers with Olivia Munn and Paul Schneider. Additionally, NBC is developing a U.S. version of the Australian black comedy series Laid, from BermanBraun. Ali Rushfield (Help Me Help You) will write the script for the project, which was brought to NBC and BermanBraun by Jeremy Fox and Kary Mchoul of Digital Rights Group. It centers on a woman whose ex-boyfriends/one-night stands start dying under suspicious circumstances, prompting her to launch an investigation with her roommate and try to stop the murder spree. UTA-repped Rushfield, Lloyd Braun, Gail Berman and Gene Stein are executive producing. The original series, created by Marieke Hardy and Kirsty Fisher, premiered on ABC1 in February. The format was repped by ICM.

Warners Buys Spec 'The Envoy' for Joel Silver to produce (Exclusive)

Jason Merritt/Getty Images Warner Bros has acquired an action thriller spec titled The Envoy by Robert Lynn. Silver Pictures' Joel Silver and Andrew Rona are attached to create. The story concentrates on youthful diplomatic courier whose routine delivery turns deadly when it's discovered the sensitive information he carries includes stolen plans with an attack on American interests. She must achieve the American embassy in Vienna while various forces make an effort to stop him. Silver's Sarah Meyer introduced the project in and may act in the producer capacity. Silver and Rona have observed success inside the worldwide thriller arena, while using Liam Neeson thriller Unknown being the latest example. Silver is developing a Virtual Detective: A Game Title Title of Shadows, which opens December, as well as the duo have comedy Project X being launched next season. Lynn will be a scribe contestant on Project: Greenlight who ongoing to produce and direct several low-budget movies. That is his initial purchase. He's repped by UTA, Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment and attorney Owen Seitel. Warner Bros. Pictures Group

UPDATE: Apple Introduces iPhone 4S, Souped-Up Features Focus On Ease Of Use

UPDATE: Apple just wrapped up its press conference announcing the upgraded iPhone. Better hardware, new operating system, and available on Sprint as well as AT&T and Verizon — but not the revolutionary iPhone 5that some predicted. Available Oct. 14, wireless subscribers will be able to score a 64 gig version of the iPhone 4Sfor $399,a 32 GB model for$299, and 16 GB for$199. Butthe price for the 8 GB iPhone4has been cut to $99 while the 3GS is free. The 4S will look a lot like previous iPhones but will have a dual core processor that handles graphics about seven times faster — good news for gamers. It will be a world phone, capable of handling wireless calls transmitted via GSM or CDMA technologies. The camera has been upgraded: 8 megapixels with more sensitive light processing andface detection. The company also talked up the speed; just a half second lag between shots. It will handle 1080p high definition video with image stabilization. Apple’s also excited about a new feature called Siri: It will answer verbal inquiries about, say, the weather, stock prices, and restaurant reviews — and handle tasks such as making appointments in your calendar. As expected, the company said that it will launch its iCloud service on Oct. 12. No talk about Facebook integration. Investors apparently expected more: The value of Apple shares declined during the presentation and are down about 4.7% about an hour before the end of the trading day. PREVIOUS 2:10 AM: Super-secretive Applee-mailed “Let’s Talk iPhone” invitations to a 10 AM PT media event at its headquarters in Cupertino this morning. But it’s the first major product unveiling that won’t be introduced by Steve Jobs. Instead,his successor Tim Cook is expected to present what may be the iPhone 5 and/or the iPhone 4S and/orApple’s latest iOS mobile software –iOS 5.According to The AP,the latest iPhonewill includewireless device setup and content syncing, a better 8-megapixel camera, as well as email and Web-browsing apps. Butthe new smartphone isn’t expected to lookmuch different from the iPhone 4, though it could be thinner and have a bigger screen. Deadline’s sibling site BGR.com says some industry watchers had hoped fora brand new teardrop-shaped iPhone 5 with larger display, insanely thin design, and more. Now its looking like Apple might be set to introduce an upgraded iPhone 4 instead. Bummer, right?Not ifApples iPhone 4S isa pretty substantial bump as opposed to just an incremental update, as many are speculating. Some even thinkAppleis set to unveil about a dozen various iPhone models this week, ranging from a modest update on the cheap to a teardrop-shaped overhaul that will feature a 4-inch display and a unibody aluminum design. Many industry watchers are predictinga more powerful chip: Apple’s dual-core A5 processor, which is the sameused in its current iPad for improved multitasking, opening apps, and gaming. A new service called iMessage will allow iOS 5 users to send text messages to each other over Wi-Fi or wireless carriers’ data networks. A folder called Newsstand will corral newspaper and magazine app subscriptions in one place to make it easier to find them.The newiPhone is also expected to include Apple’s forthcoming iCloud service, which will store content such as music, documents, apps and photos on Apple’s servers and let you access them wirelessly on numerous devices. AP saysanalysts believeApple couldtrot out new iPods and updates toiTunes music software, which it usually does in the fall anyway.In any case, the new software willbe available for Apple’s iPad, iPhone 4 and 3GS and the two most recent generations of the iPod Touch. Janney Capital Markets analyst Bill Choi believes Apples success with the iPhone will continue to sky rocket. Choi estimated recently that Apple will ship 87 million iPhone units this year and 107 million during 2012, a 27% increase year-over-year. Apples growing number of carrier partners will be the primary catalyst for the growth, Choi said, noting that 228 wireless carriers offered the iPhone in a total of 105 countries during the third quarter of this year. There are still a handful of major carriers worldwide that have yet to carry the iPhone. Potential deals with Sprint (52.1M subscribers), T-Mobile (33.6M subscribers), China Mobile (628M subscribers) and other large international carriers pose a catalyst to fuel iPhone sales, Choi wrote in a research note. Meanwhile,the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint has anagreement with Apple to purchase over $20 billion worth of iPhones over the next four years, oraround 30 million iPhones.

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