Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival has selected Universal's United 93 as the opening-night film on April 25. The movie, written and directed by Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy), describes the hijacking of the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. Tribeca officials said that family members of those who were killed in the crash have been invited to attend the screening. The festival itself was founded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks as part of an effort to revitalize the economy of Lower Manhattan. In a statement announcing the selection of United 93 as the festival opener, co-founder Jane Rosenthal took note of the festival's original purpose when she remarked: "We are honored to showcase a film that portrays a story of bravery and sacrifice of the men and women who dedicated their lives that day aboard United Flight 93. ... 9/11 changed us, in indescribable personal ways, but also by forever altering our downtown community."

Randy Fullmer, who produced Disney's Chicken Little, and Mark Dindal, who directed it, have quietly quit the company, the animation website O-meon.com reported Wednesday. In an interview, both Fullmer and Dindal denied that the takeover of Disney's animation business by Pixar execs played any part in their decision to leave. Fullmer said that he just wanted to "do my own things for awhile," adding: "It was great to work with 400 people in that sort of collaborative thing but it would just be nice to go back and be an individual artist for awhile." Dindal said that he was interested in making a film combining live action with animation. "I started to save up some money so that I could strike out for about a year and see what I could do as far as trying to get a film along those lines." He did not indicate whether he had approached Disney about such a project.

Raising new questions about the suitability of portable devices for watching motion pictures, Paramount and Universal, citing poor sales, have stopped releasing movies on Sony's Universal Media Disc (UMD), which plays on the popular PlayStation Portable gaming device. According to today's (Thursday) Hollywood Reporter, other studios are cutting back on releases, while retailers are reducing the amount of shelf space devoted to UMDs. "No one's watching movies on PSP," the president of one of the six major studios' home entertainment divisions told the trade publication. "It's a game player, period." But Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, said that he believed owners of the device were loading movies into its memory stick and watching them that way.

In an announcement that left many analysts scratching their heads, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment President Benjamin Feingold announced Wednesday that the company will release its first batch of movies on high-definition Blu-ray discs on May 23 -- even though no players will be available at that time on which to play them. Sony has indicated that the first players may not be available until November. In an interview with Home Media Retailing, Feingold said, "We realize there may be some delays on the hardware side, but we are going to honor our commitment to release movies when we said we would." Questions immediately arose concerning what retailers will do with the disks when they receive them. Said Feingold: "There are two schools of thought: A dealer could have them for publicity purposes, to prime the market, or we can ship them later, when hardware is on the market. But the important point is, we can meet the date -- that's the key."

Universal "is on the verge" of releasing studio chairman Stacey Snider from her contract, thereby allowing her to take over as CEO of Paramount's DreamWorks unit on April 10, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Thursday), citing executives involved in the matter. Universal Studios President Ron Meyer had originally maintained that Snider would not be permitted to leave until her contract expired at the end of the year. No reason was given for his change of heart.

Stuntman Steven Scott Wheatley has sued Paramount and Tom Cruise's production company claiming that gross negligence on their part resulted in a Mission Impossible 3 scene involving pyrotechnics to go wrong and engulf him in a ball of fire that resulted in burns over 60 percent of his body. Wheatley claimed in the lawsuit that the scene, filmed last June, was supposed to simulate a missile attack on a Chevy Suburban but that the gasoline bomb used in the scene exploded prematurely while he was standing a few feet away.

One day after a movie production company filming in Spokane and faced with a strike decided to pull up stakes and head for Vancouver, it began returning to Spokane. Television station KXLY reported Wednesday that the production company, North by Northwest, had reached an agreement with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) that would allow production of the movie Home of the Brave to resume. The film stars Samuel L. Jackson, 50 Cent, Christina Ricci and Jessica Biel. Under the agreement, North by Northwest will remain a non-union entity, while creating a separate company, Home of the Brave Productions, Inc., which will sign a contract with IATSE.

Al Jazeera, the Arab all-news cable network, is moving into the film business, launching a $1.4 million fund to aid independent TV and theatrical film producers. The announcement of the fund was made at an Arab TV documentary festival sponsored by Al Jazeera, which opened Tuesday in Doha, Qatar, where Al Jazeera is headquartered, and continues through today (Thursday). In addition to direct production investment, the fund will also provide training and technical services for young filmmakers.

A stunning 1.3 million people have registered to use CBS's free online player to access the network's March Madness on Demand, CBS said Wednesday. Brad Berens, executive editor of iMedia Communications, commented today (Thursday) that the player is "unquestionably a success and a big moment for the way that interactive and TV are working together." He cited figures from CBS Digital indicating that the 1.3 million users have accessed the player five million times during which they have generated over 15 million video streams of live game action.

Laying to rest repeated rumors that Paula Abdul will be replaced as a judge on American Idol, the program's producers announced Wednesday that they have extended her contract through May 2008. Daily Variety, citing a person familiar with the deal, reported that Abdul also received "a substantial raise," and indicated that it will be in the "hefty" seven-figure range. Meanwhile, Wednesday night's Idol results show trounced everything in sight as it garnered a 15.8 rating and a 23 share. It also served as a strong lead-in for Fox's Unan1mous, which recorded an 8.6/13. the one-two punch gave Fox another win for the night as it averaged a 9.6/15, easily beating second-place CBS, which recorded a 7.3/12.

The FCC's decision on Wednesday to drop indecency fines against eight stations has raised the question of whether TV stations in the Central time zone, which air programs an hour earlier than those in the rest of the country, may move up their programs one hour in order to avoid sanctions by the commission in the future. Analysts noted that five of the eight stations that had been fined for airing what the FCC regarded as an indecent episode of CBS's Without a Trace were located in parts of Indiana that do not observe Daylight Savings Time and where the program aired at 10:00 p.m. FCC "safe harbor" rules on indecency generally apply only to programs that are broadcast before 10:00 p.m. The other three stations that were released from the fines are located in Tennessee, which covers both the Central and Eastern time zones. Presumably, the three stations in question also carried the program at 10:00 p.m.

Michael Eisner's transition from an entertainment mogul to a talk-show host got off to a rocky start Tuesday as only 95,000 viewers tuned in to watch his first program on CNBC, which featured interviews (or "conversations," as they were billed) with Martha Stewart, Sony chief Howard Stringer, and former Disney exec Bran Ferren. The program attracted only 39,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demographic group. However, a CNBC spokesman told the Los Angeles Times that the network was "very proud" of the program, explaining: "This is a program that is hosted by a former CEO for an audience of high-powered decision makers who aren't measured by Nielsen."

Despite denials by a spokesman for Isaac Hayes, FoxNews.com gossip columnist Roger Friedman is sticking to his story that Hayes suffered a stroke in January and that his decision to quit South Park had nothing to do with the show's treatment of Scientology. In his column on Wednesday, Friedman wrote: "Isaac did not want anyone to know he had a stroke in January, and we kept that secret without being asked. But now that statements keep coming out about him, and no one's seen him, it seems important to say exactly what happened. We wish him a speedy recovery." Friedman once again insisted that those speaking for Hayes are Scientologists and that none of them contacted him directly to deny his report. He cited a "mutual friend" as saying that Hayes "never cared what they said in South Park" about Scientology.

NBC's Scrubs will become available for downloading from Apple's iTunes Music Store the day after it airs, with the network sharing the revenue ($1.99 per download) with Disney's Touchstone Television, which produces the show. It marks the first time that a current television show has been offered for legal downloading that has not been produced by the network that broadcasts it. In an interview with today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times, NBC Universal Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker said, "Hopefully, this will open the door to make available more shows that we don't own. ... We all produce shows for other networks, we all cross-pollenate each other, so hopefully this will become the model going forward."