'Stomp the Yard' still dancing at No. 1
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- "Stomp the Yard" danced around the competition for the second week, taking in $13.3 million over the weekend for the No. 1 spot in U.S. box office receipts.
"Night at the Museum" retained its No. 2 position with $13 million.
Estimated figures are from Box Office Mojo.
"Dreamgirls," benefiting from its three Golden Globe awards, took the third position, with $8.7 million in weekend grosses.
The week's highest debuting new release was "The Hitcher," landing in fourth with $8.2 million.
"The Pursuit of Happyness," dropped to fifth from third with $6.7 million.
"Freedom Writers" with $5.5 million slipped from fifth to sixth.
"Pan's Labyrinth" jumped from 16th to seventh with $4.7 in weekend grosses.
The biggest jump was "The Queen," also a Golden Globe winner, which soared from 24th to eighth.
Rounding out the top 10 were "Children of Men," dropping to ninth from seventh on $3.7 million; and "Arthur and the Invisibles," which slipped from No. 9, with $3.1 in gross receipts.
Demme denied access to key Carter speech
WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Brandeis University has denied director Jonathan Demme access to a speech by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, which Demme wanted to shoot for a film.
The university will not allow Demme to film Carter's upcoming speech, which the Oscar-winning filmmaker said he intended to use in a documentary about Carter, the Boston Globe reported.
The school's decision angered Demme and added another wrinkle to Carter's controversial visit to the university.
"When I heard that we had been denied permission, I was kind of incredulous," Demme said. "They have in a way diminished everyone's ability to add to the debate, including the Brandeis students themselves."
Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz had opposed Carter's visit unless Carter agreed to a debate with someone who held opposite views on his controversial new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
Carter refused, but then agreed to appear next Tuesday after Brandeis students and faculty signed a petition, the newspaper said.
The committee that invited Carter supports the decision to exclude Demme. Kevin Montgomery, a senior who serves on the committee, told the Globe several documentary crews had asked to film the event, but allowing them in would have sacrificed too many student seats in the hall.
Trust to fund Argentine films
BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Argentina's Cine.ar has announced plans to launch the country's first film trust company and raise money on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange.
Organizers of InvertFilm I, scheduled to launch in February, aim to collect $5 million to fund three projects, including one by director-producer Daniel Burman, whose most recent effort was the father-son drama, "Ley de familia," Variety said Sunday. The others are "Motivos para no enamorarse" by Maria Laura Gargarella and "Bonita" by Mirta Raquel Ovsejevich.
"We don't want to have to depend" on state finances, Burman, a partner in Cine.ar through his BD Cine production company, told Variety.
State financing of about $26 million in credits and subsidies is distributed to about 60 films, he said.
Fund developers aim for an annual return of 20 percent from receipts, exports and DVD productions, and the films' percentage of a state fund supported by a tax on ticket sales, video rentals and a portion of TV ad revenue.
A producer will have to request money from the publicly traded fund through an auditing process, said Agustin Bahl, a manager at the Buenos Aires brokerage firm handling the offering.
Fox head says FCC's rulings chilling
PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Recent FCC rulings have had a "chilling effect" on what U.S. television networks develop, Fox Entertainment President Peter Ligouri said.
"The situation we all find ourselves in with the FCC is a very difficult one," Ligouri said during the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. "It definitely has a chilling effect on creative."
Ligouri's comments come three years after the NFL, CBS and MTV drew the Federal Communication Commission's ire for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, when Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" exposed a breast. More than 200,000 complaints were filed with the FCC from offended viewers.
The agency later fined Clear Channel Communications $775,000 for what the FCC said were indecency violations by a radio shock jock.
The FCC, by law, has the authority to determine what is obscene or indecent. The problem for networks arises because guidelines about what is or isn't obscene are absent, the Fox executive said.
The current creative climate, Ligouri said, was "regrettably restrictive," in part because "there's no set definition" for just what the FCC considers obscene.
