Entertainment Today: Showbiz news

'SPIDER-MAN'

Box-office analysts expect big things from "Spider-Man" when it opens this weekend in 3,615 theaters on as many as 7,500 screens.

The screen adaptation of the Marvel Comics classic is expected to break the record for biggest opening over the first weekend in May -- set last year when "The Mummy Returns" grossed $68.1 million in its opening weekend.

"Spider-Man" is not expected to challenge "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for the all-time biggest opening over a three-day weekend -- $90.3 million.

Other new releases this weekend include the new Woody Allen comedy "Hollywood Ending" and the street gang drama "Deuces Wild," starring Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro and Matt Dillon.

NBC'S DIAMOND CELEBRATION

NBC looks back at 75 years in the broadcasting business with a three-hour TV special Sunday that not only celebrates the past, but also calls attention to how radically different the medium has become since the glory days of the big three networks.

The Peacock Network will kick off its celebration on Friday, when New York's 49th Street is temporarily renamed "NBC Way" between 5th & 6th Avenues. Following that, Bill Cosby will be inducted into the NBC Walk of Fame.

Sunday's telecast -- hosted by Cosby, Michael J. Fox, Kelsey Grammer, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld -- is the centerpiece of the network's month-long diamond anniversary celebration. It features performers from NBC's past including Don Adams ("Get Smart"), Sid Caesar ("Your Show of Shows"), Diahann Carroll ("Julia"), Robert Culp ("I Spy"), Ted Danson ("Cheers"), Angie Dickinson ("Policewoman") Barbara Eden, ("I Dream of Jeannie") David Hasselhoff ("KnightRider"), Peter Falk ("Columbo"), Jack Klugman ("Quincy") and Don Johnson ("Miami Vice").

They will mingle with the casts of "Friends," "Will & Grace" and "ER" -- current hit shows that deal in subject matter the older shows would never dare go near, using a vocabulary that would have gotten producers of the '70s and '80s in trouble with network censors, and might have cost producers their jobs in the '50s.

Like many other veteran performers, Caesar said he is not happy with the looser standards that apply to network programming. "I long for the days when the whole family could sit down in front of the television set and watch the show and not be afraid," he said.

One of the shows that took a battering ram to the old taboos was "Hill Street Blues," which managed to push the envelope by also offering some of the best writing and acting on TV in the 1980s.

James B. Sikking -- who played the trigger-happy SWAT team leader Lt. Howard Hunter -- said the show also came on at a time when NBC had little to lose. "In 1980, if you check the history books NBC was not only No. 3 of the three networks at that time, it was in the toilet," he said. "Seven years later when 'Hill Street' left the scene, it was the only show that had been on NBC for seven years. Everything else had changed."

(The above two items thanks to UPI Hollywood Reporter Pat Nason)

AUDREY HEPBURN TRIBUTE

A new permanent sculpture tribute to Audrey Hepburn will be unveiled at United Nations Plaza in New York next Tuesday.

Titled "Spirit of Audrey," it was created by artist John Kennedy and depicts a tall, slender woman holding a small child by the hand.

UNICEF Spokespeople Harry Belafonte, Judy Collins, Mia Farrow, Bob McGrath, Roger Moore, Isabella Rossellini, Marcus Samuelsson and Vendela and UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy will join Kevyn Aucoin, Diane von Furstenberg, and Ralph Lauren in paying tribute to Hepburn, best known for her starring roles in movies such as "My Fair Lady, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Roman Holiday" and "Sabrina."

But her greatest role of all was as a humanitarian. Hepburn served as Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) from 1988 until her death in 1993. About her work with UNICEF she once said, "I've been auditioning my whole life for this role and I finally got it."

(Web site: kennedysculpture.com)

THE BUBBA SHOW?

A Bill Clinton spokeswoman confirms the former president has met with NBC executives in Los Angeles to discuss hosting his own talk show.

"President Clinton did not demand a talk show ... he has met many people over the past year concerning various projects including television ... he went to listen," Julia Payne said of Wednesday's talks. "The president is gratified by the range of opportunities that have been presented to him."

No comment from NBC.

It's not the first time Clinton has had conversations with NBC. In December 2000, NBC's Shirley Powell said, "We love the idea of Bill Clinton on television, and we've had some initial conversations about it."

Clinton is in Los Angeles this week for a Democratic fund-raiser.

The Los Angeles Times reports Clinton was demanding a fee of $50 million a year to do a talk show. While television salaries are high, $50 million a year is considered very high for an untried substance such as Clinton.

Former presidents usually make speeches, write books, do good works, serve on corporate boards, build their presidential libraries and help shape their legacy.

"What happens to his legacy if the show fails?" radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh asks.

Since leaving office in 2001, Clinton has signed a $12 million advance for his memoir that will emphasize the White House years, which is scheduled to be published in hardcover by Knopf in 2003, and by Vintage Books in trade paperback in 2004. It's also estimated that he pulls in $15 million a year from speeches that he gives around the world.