LIN Television said its local broadcast stations in 14 markets will be pulled from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks if the companies cannot renegotiate a retransmission-consent deal by next Friday, May 31. Time Warner Cable did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to LIN, the agreements with Time Warner Cable... Read more »

If theater owners are the most powerful figures on Broadway, then there’s a new power player in town. The purchase this week of Broadway’s largest venue, the 1,930-seat Foxwoods, reps the first real foothold in Main Stem real estate for Ambassador Theater Group, the Brit legit giant that across the U.K. owns 39 venues (including... Read more »

CANNES — Striking fast at Cannes, Film Movement has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Sebastien Betbeder’s “2 Autumns, 3 Winters,” a film in France’s long tradition of contemporary relationship dramas. Sold by Alpha Violet, and unspooling over two falls and three winters, “2 Autumns” turns on two friends in their early-thirties, Arman and Benjamin, one... Read more »

CANNES — Founded last year to forge stronger links between Mexico and Hollywood, and attended by Edward Norton, Matt Dillon, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, the Baja Intl. Film Festival has seen an extensive makeover in top execs, industry events and geographic scope. The 2nd Baja Festival runs Nov. 13-16. Alonso Aguilar, previously Baja... Read more »

With Lucasfilm gearing up for a new era of active production of Star Wars films and TV series, the company has upped John Knoll to chief creative officer of Industrial Light & Magic. Knoll joins ILM president Lynwen Brennan at the top of the storied f/x studio. Knoll’s credits as vfx supervisor include the first... Read more »

Kevin Brockman, head of Disney/ABC Television Group communications, has been elected board chairman of the non-profit LGBT advocacy org GLSEN. The New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network works with schools to ensure the safety of LGBT students. Brockman has been active with the org for nearly 20 years and a board member for... Read more »

For those who didn’t find “Walk the Line” a sufficient exploration of the Johnny Cash-June Carter made-in-country-heaven romance, Lifetime putties in the gaps with “Ring of Fire,” a handsome-looking TV movie that hits the relationship’s high notes without really carrying a tune. Jewel stars (and does her own singing, admirably) as June, but the source... Read more »

Paris-based sales agent Other Angle is celebrating its fifth birthday at Cannes with a flurry of deals across its slate, and a pickup. “The Big Bad Wolf,” a French comedy starring Benoit Poelvoorde (“Coco Before Chanel”), Kad Merad (“Welcome to the Sticks”) and Charlotte Le Bon (“Yves Saint Laurent”), sold to Canada (Christal), Switzerland (Frenetic) and... Read more »

Although the obvious comparison is to CW’s short-lived cheerleader drama “Hellcats,” “Hit the Floor” — a terrible title for VH1’s soap about, to cut to the chase, the Laker Girls — bears a closer resemblance to Lifetime’s “The Client List,” in that it’s so trashy and terrible, it’s kind of good. Graduating to a professional... Read more »

Back before her 1986 breakthrough, "Control," then-teenage Janet Jackson was still mostly known as Michael’s Little Sister.

Karlovy Vary, Central Europe’s leading film fest, is to pay tribute to Jerry Schatzberg. The helmer, who was one of the leading lights of New Hollywood and won the Palme d’Or with “Scarecrow,” will present three of his early works. The pics to screen will be his 1970 debut “Puzzle of a Downfall Child,” which... Read more »

Looking to boost its reach beyond legacy pay TV, Discovery Communications has launched TestTube, an ad-supported, free-to-consumer network aimed at young males, stocked with 15 original series. TestTube series will include: daily science show “DNews”; “Distort,” featuring slow-motion footage; “Laci Green’s Sex+” about human sexuality; “Shots of Awe,” hosted by Jason Silva; the weekly “Thanks,... Read more »

Alexander Payne's sixth feature is another low-concept, finely etched study of flawed characters stuck in life’s well-worn grooves.

ARRI Worldsales has sold animated feature “Ploe — You Never Fly Alone,” which is produced by the creators of “Legends of Valhalla — Thor,” to several territories at Cannes. Story centers on a young Golden Plover who has trouble learning to fly, so isn’t able to migrate with his family, and to survive alone. Based on a... Read more »

Shazam, the content-recognition app developer, has finally added a critical feature that media companies and advertisers have been seeking for years — the ability to ID songs, TV shows and ads without having to be told. Until now, every time users wanted to “Shazam” a song or TV show to get more info, they have... Read more »

Chile’s Forastero, producer of the Golden Globe-nommed “The Maid,” is teaming with Frederic Corvez’s Paris-based UDI, one of France’s most prominent Latin American pic production-sales houses, to produce “Radiestesia” (Dowsing). UDI has acquired international sales rights on “Dowsing”; Corvez’s Paris-based Urban Factory will co-produce with Forastero. Reteaming with Forastero for the first time since “The... Read more »

Celebrities are known for striking rich licensing deals to launch their own clothing, headphone or perfume businesses. But Jennifer Lopez is taking her entrepreneurial interests a step further to openin a new brand of cell phone stores — Viva Movil — that will target Latinos. Lopez plans to open the chain of 15 stores, beginning... Read more »

Kirsten Prout (“The Lying Game”), Chloe Bridges (“The Carrie Diaries”) and Daryl Hannah have come on board to star in independent film “Offline.” Larry Rattner is producing, with shooting in Los Angeles this month. Mark Quod is directing from a script by Anna Rasmussen. Prout will play a top student whose life is turned upside... Read more »

I love you, I hate you, I’ll kill you. That’s the lurid premise of “Murder Ballad,” the hot and sticky rock opera that made auds sweat when it opened six months ago at Manhattan Theater Club’s studio space.  Reconfigured for a commercial transfer in a larger theater, this hot-blooded property written by Julia Jordan and... Read more »

"Ain't Them Bodies Saints" stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara discuss the IFC drama at the Variety Studio in Cannes.