In a rare instance of a Japanese company naming a Westerner to a leadership position, Sony Corporation's board today (Monday) appointed Sir Howard Stringer chairman and CEO. Stringer, an American citizen born in Britain and knighted in 1999, will succeed Nobuyuki Idei. His appointment appeared to represent Stringer's crowning success as a man who had spent half his lifetime as a journalist for CBS (at one point he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, finally rising to become CBS chairman), and a recognition of his success at rebuilding Sony's film and music divisions as head of Sony's U.S. operation. At the same time, it also appeared to represent Sony's realization that its electronics unit, once regarded as a leader in innovation and stagnant for more than a decade, had produced no Japanese manager who could restore the company to its onetime dominance. Pointedly, Stringer said in a statement, "We look forward to joining our twin pillars of engineering and technology with our commanding presence in entertainment and content creation to deliver the most advanced devices and forms of entertainment to the consumer." Indeed. Sony appears to be principally relying on Stringer's celebrated diplomatic skills to bring together contending factions within the company's entertainment and electronics divisions. Stringer's appointment is due to become effective on June 22 but must first be approved by company shareholders.

Clobbered by almost universally poor reviews, MGM's Be Cool turned out to be not so hot at the box office over the weekend. The film, in which John Travolta reprised his role of Chili Palmer from 1995's Get Shorty, grossed an estimated $23.5 million. Analysts figured it would do something between $25 million and $30 million. Still, if the figure holds (it's only off by 100,000 people from last weekend), it will still represent Travolta's biggest opening ever. First place went to The Pacifier, with Vin Diesel, which produced far-better-than-expected results. A third newcomer, Warner's The Jacket, tanked, coming in tenth and earning just $2.67 million. Last week's winner, Diary of a Mad Black Woman dropped 45 percent to number 10, with $12 million. Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby appeared to be the only film to get a boost in ticket sales, as it took in $12 million to place fourth. Total ticket sales for the top 12 films came in at $110.8 million, 16 percent below the comparable week a year ago.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations: 1. The Pacifier, $30.2 million; 2. Be Cool, $23.5 million; 3. Hitch, $12.5 million; 4. Diary of a Mad Black Woman, $12 million; 5. Million Dollar Baby, $8.5 million; 6. Constantine, $6 million; 7. Cursed, $3.9 million; 8. Man of the House, $3.5 million; 9. Because of Winn-Dixie, $3.4 million; 10. The Jacket, $2.7 million.

Apparently hoping to attract the millions of churchgoers who flocked to The Passion of the Christ -- but who rarely go to the movies -- the Walt Disney Co. has begun to court church groups to secure their support for their upcoming film version of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. According to some reports, the studio has hired a PR firm with strong connections among the evangelical movement and has already seen positive results from the move. Jim Burns, head of San Francisco-based HomeWord, which produces a syndicated 30-minute radio program each day, aimed at young people, told the London Sunday Telegraph: "We are very, very optimistic about what Disney is doing with the film. Our people have seen some footage and it is wonderful from the Christian point of view." The film has also received the endorsement of Douglas Gresham, the stepson of C.S. Lewis, who operates a religious retreat in Dublin, Ireland. "I am a committed Christian and I am very happy with the script," Gresham said.

Mel Gibson's Icon Productions has sent $500 checks to hundreds of church groups to reimburse them for a "worship price" that it says was charged by the parent company of Regal Theaters for prescreenings of The Passion of the Christ last year, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Monday). The newspaper said that the charge was discovered in the course of a recently settled lawsuit that Icon had filed against Regal last year over profits from the movie. Icon included this message with the checks: "During our dispute with Regal, it came to our attention that your congregation, and others, were charged an additional administrative fee on top of the private screening ticket prices -- that Regal referred to internally as a 'worship price.' ... Icon was shocked and disappointed that this additional fee (which was never reported to us) was being charged to faith-based organizations." Regal said that it commonly charges an administrative fee for private screenings.

As expected, the Screen Actors Guild on Sunday appointed Greg Hessinger its new national executive director and CEO. Hessinger currently holds a similar position with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It was not clear whether he will continue to hold the AFTRA post when he assumes the SAG job on May 2.

The Federal Trade Commission filed a motion in federal court Friday aimed at blocking Blockbuster's planned hostile takeover of rival Hollywood Entertainment, the corporate parent of the Hollywood Video rental chain. The FTC said that Blockbuster had "provided insufficient and inaccurate pricing data." Hollywood has received another takeover bid from Movie Gallery. A spokesman for Blockbuster called the FTC's reaction "a diversionary tactic by the FTC staff that's intended to forestall any hearing on the merits."

Two days before making what today's (Monday) Los Angeles Times described as a "messy exit" as anchor of the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather is dodging brickbats from colleagues and former associates, who are fixing the blame on him for a kind of trench warfare that they have been forced to fight for well over a decade. An editorial appearing in today's Ventura County Star observes, "You don't have to be a fan to be dismayed by the way he's being treated [by his CBS colleagues] as he heads for the door." However, appearing on Fox News Sunday, Donald Trump remarked, "He was always highly overrated. I think it was disgusting the way [Memogate] was handled by Dan Rather, and I don't know why they're firing other people. He was the head of it." At the same time, Rather himself is insisting that he's not being driven out of CBS News and that he will continue to report for 60 Minutes Wednesday. And if that program should be canceled, he told the Los Angeles Times, he'll work for the Sunday edition of the program. (Several longtime regular correspondents and producers of that program have already indicated that Rather would not be invited to join them.) Meanwhile, in an interview with USA Today, Bob Schieffer, who takes over the Evening News helm on Thursday, has described his role as interim anchor this way: "Maybe I can be like Vice President Cheney. ... One of the reasons I think he is so influential on the president, for good or ill, is that the president knows he didn't want his job. He's the first vice president like that in a long time. Everybody knows that this is not something I'm hungering for, so maybe I can really be objective and really be helpful in finding better ways to cover the news."

The head of NBC Universal earned more last year than the head of its corporate parent, General Electric, according to a GE filing with the SEC, reported by today's (Monday) Hollywood Reporter. The filing indicates that GE CEO Jeff Immelt earned $8.53 million, including an annual salary of $3 million, plus a $5.3-million bonus. NBC CEO Bob Wright, however, received somewhat more -- $8.64 million for the year, with a base salary of $2.5 million, plus an annual bonus of $5.7 million and other compensation amounting to $440,000. Both men, according to the filings, received several expensive perks, including use of company aircraft, a leased car, GE home appliances, and security services.

The debut of NBC's Law & Order: Trial by Jury got off to a solid start on Friday, a day after a "sneak" of the show that aired on Thursday night. It scored a 7.6 rating and a 13 share, the highest ratings of the night and helped win the night for NBC. Impressively, it beat a rerun of CBS's CSI Crime Scene Investigation which scored a 6.2/11.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics has developed the world's largest consumer TFT-LCD TV monitor -- 82 inches. In a statement, the company said that the monitor will reproduce high-definition television. Sang Soo Kim, head of Samsung's LCD development center, said in a statement, "We have achieved the world's best performance in terms of contrast ratio, viewing angle and color saturation" with the new model. Neither a distribution date nor a price was disclosed.

Pakistani musician Aki Nawaz has expressed anger at the BBC's decision to change the title of a program in which he appeared from Pakistani Nights to British, Paki and Proud. In an interview with the London Sunday Observer, Nawaz said that "Paki" has "always been a racist term" and has never been used in an acceptable fashion by Pakistanis. However, a spokesman for the BBC said that the program's producers were not endorsing the use of the word and called the film, "a thought-provoking documentary which seeks to challenge assumptions."