Nikki Finke

I’m confirming this week, along with Mike Fleming, editor of my new Deadline New York site, that Sony Pictures decided to reboot the Spider-Man franchise after franchise director Sam Raimi pulled out of Spider-Man 4 because he felt he couldn’t make its summer release date and keep the film’s creative......

I love awards season because my e-mail box gets jammed with negative campaigning about all the Academy Awards hopefuls. Such holiday cheer is out here! Over the years, I’ve reported on the studio bad-mouthing of heavyweight Saving Private Ryan to better the Oscar chances of lightweight Shakespeare in Love. And......

Just what the world needs — bigger and better flacking. But what is being described to me as the largest U.S. entertainment and lifestyle public relations and marketing company will be created on January 1. That’s because, on December 7, the powerful PR brand PMK/HBH announced to its staff that......

“Project Crimson” has from the start been the code name for the biggest media merger in recent memory, and all 290 pages outlining the financials involving General Electric’s purchase of 20 percent of NBC Universal, giving it ownership of NBC, had been worked out weeks ago. Then the complicated structural......

One of the biggest questions in the TV biz has been when, and even if, Oprah Winfrey would give up her daytime syndicated talk show to focus on OWN, her long-delayed Oprah Winfrey Network. Debuting in 70 million homes, it was supposed to launch in place of the Discovery Health......

“SCARING PEOPLE’S BRAINS OUT”The big story in Hollywood is the return of The Blair Witch Project. Only this time, it’s called Paranormal Activity, another film made for peanuts that’s benefiting from pre-Halloween hype. But even rival studios are salivating over the box-office potential of the Paramount pickup, which opened on......

First, Walt Disney CEO/president Bob Iger fired Dick Cook as chairman of the Walt Disney Studios and on October 5 named Disney Channels Worldwide head Rich Ross to replace him. Meanwhile, on the same day, Universal Studios’ Ron Meyer fired Universal Pictures chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde and replaced......

The best line at the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards was from Tina Fey (of course), who said, “We want to thank our friends at NBC for keeping us on the air ... even though we are so much more expensive than a talk show.” Neat bitch-slap, Tina. Considering this......

Few issues during the November 2007/February 2008 writers strike stirred as much anger and emotion as whether Writers Guild, West, member Jay Leno violated the union’s strike rules during his return to hosting The Tonight Show. The WGAw’s investigation into Leno was conducted with utmost secrecy. Last month, Hollywood found......