John Lasseter and Ed Catmull are planning to return the Walt Disney Co.'s studios in Burbank to its roots as a "traditional" (hand-drawn) animation company exclusively, while Pixar will continue to turn out computer-animated (CG) features, Disney watcher Jim Hill reported on his website www.jimhillmedia.com today (Tuesday). In doing so, Lasseter, the chief creative officer for Disney Animation, and Catmull, the unit's president, will be reversing Disney's efforts over the past three years to, in Hill's words, "retrain that studio's staff as well as to change Disney Feature Animation into a state-of-the-art CG operation." Hill observed that the plan has not yet been "entirely embraced" by Disney CEO Robert Iger. One result of the about-face, Hill noted, has been the cancellation of Disney's plans to produce the computer-animated American Dog, a movie conceived and supervised by Chris Sanders, who ironically was responsible for Disney's last big hand-drawn hit, Lilo and Stitch.

Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness left all rivals in hot pursuit over the weekend as the movie took in $26.5 million, well ahead of the expected winner, 20th Century Fox's Eragon, which earned $23.2 million. A third new film, the live-action Charlotte's Web, took third place with $11.5 million. All other films were left in the dust, including last week's winner, Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, which dropped 50 percent to $8 million.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Media by Numbers (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. The Pursuit of Happyness, Sony, $26,541,709, (New); 2. Eragon, 20th Century Fox, $23,239,907, (New); 3. Charlotte's Web, Paramount, $11,457,353, (New); 4. Happy Feet, Warner Bros. $8,358,421, 5 Wks. ($149,244,791); 5. The Holiday, Sony, $8,014,713, 2 Wks. ($25,125,052); 6. Apocalypto, Disney, $8,008,126, 2 Wks. ($28,209,532); 7. Blood Diamond, Warner Bros. $6,517,471, 2 Wks. ($18,637,257); 8. Casino Royale, Sony, $5,627,644, 5 Wks. ($137,501,384); 9. The Nativity Story, New Line, $4,656,376, 3 Wks. ($23,012,695); 10. Unaccompanied Minors, Warner Bros. $3,545,352, 2 Wks. ($10,093,267).

Tom Cruise may be planning to follow in the footsteps of John Travolta and make a movie based on the ideas of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. According to the London Daily Star, Cruise has already cast former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, the wife of soccer star David Beckham, to star in the movie, titled The Thetan in the role of an "alien bride." In Hubbard's thinking, "the thetan" is the spiritual part of man that advances from one lifetime to the next, inhabiting the minds and bodies of generations of individuals. According to the tabloid, Cruise is financing the movie on his own after the major studios rejected it. Travolta's $73-million movie based on Hubbard's sci-fi novel Battlefield Earth was a major flop, grossing just $21 million at the domestic box office.

For the first time, cable subscribers will be able to watch movies on the same day as they are released on DVD as a result of a deal between Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, and several major studios. Comcast is currently testing the video-on-demand (VOD) service in Denver and Pittsburgh, according to published reports appearing today (Tuesday). The trial began quietly on Nov. 28 with little hoopla in an apparent effort to avoid a clash with DVD rental giants like Blockbuster, which have heretofore enjoyed a window of at least a month between the time films are released on DVD and the time they hit cable for on-demand viewing. Bruce Leichtman, who heads the Leichtman Research Group, told the Denver Post that the same-day VOD service represents "the ultimate convenience of not leaving your home. It's not movies over the Internet but straight to your TV."

Bob Dylan has launched a legal battle to prevent a movie based on the life of Edie Sedgwick, a member of Andy Warhol's Factory, from being released. The movie Factory Girl, is scheduled to be released by The Weinstein Company on Dec. 29. According to initial reviews of the movie, it implies that Sedgwick's death came after she plunged into heroin addiction after Dylan broke off his relationship with her in the late '60s. In the film, the Dylan character, played by Hayden Christensen, is named Danny Quinn and is supposedly based on several men Sedgwick knew prior to her suicide in November 1971. But Orin Snyder, Dylan's attorney, maintained that the Quinn character defames his client. (Christensen reportedly wears a scarf similar to the one Dylan wore on his Blonde on Blonde album.) "You appear to be laboring under the misunderstanding that merely changing the name of a character or making him a purported fictional composite will immunize you from suit," Snyder said in his letter. "That is not so."

What started as a trickle of high-profile editorial firings at The Hollywood Reporter last week will expand to a flood of 4,000 layoffs at Netherlands-based VNU, company CEO David Calhoun indicated Monday. The massive firings are intended to reduce costs by 10 percent (the 4,000 layoffs represent about 10 percent of VNU employees). Many of the personnel cuts will affect employees of Nielsen Media Research, which issues the daily ratings reports of U.S. TV stations. However, the company said, savings from the cuts will be used to develop new initiatives at Nielsen.

Brent Bozell's Parents Television Council, which single-handedly generated virtually all of the indecency complaints that led to the FCC's recent content crackdown, has filed an amicus brief with a New York federal court asking it to uphold the FCC's actions. Responding to claims by the networks that the commission was reacting to a coordinated campaign representing a relatively small group of religious activists most of whom had never seen the incidents of alleged indecency, the PTC brief said, "The critical fact is that each complaint comes from a real person...who is concerned about broadcast decency and wants the law enforced." Meanwhile, C-SPAN has announced that it will provide live coverage of the oral arguments in the case beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Dec. 20

Fans of ABC's Day Break -- few as they turned out to be -- will at least be able to follow the storyline through to its conclusion, when the network yanks it from its schedule this week and moves the unaired episodes to its website. In fact, ABC said that new episodes will become available online at the same time they would normally have aired -- at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. Meanwhile, several publications, citing industry rumors, said that ABC is speeding up production of Lost to get the drama back on the air ASAP. In the meantime, the time period will feature reruns of George Lopez and According to Jim.

News Corp has released notes of a conversation between Judith Regan and HarperCollins attorney Mark Jackson, which the company says, resulted in her dismissal. According to the notes, Regan, discussing the company's decision to abandon the O.J. Simpson book and TV deal and the possibility that it would also quash a forthcoming "fictional biography" about Mickey Mantle, remarked that she had been the victim of a "Jewish cabal" who included HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, Executive Editor David Hirshey and literary agent Esther Newberg. She allegedly went on to complain that she had received no support from any of them during the Simpson controversy. "Of all people, the Jews should know about ganging up, finding common enemies and telling the big lie," Regan reportedly said. In an interview with today's (Tuesday) Los Angeles Times, Regan attorney Bert Fields acknowledged that Regan had used the term "cabal" but denied she had said "Jewish cabal." As for her additional remark, Fields said, "I'm Jewish, and that statement to me seems in no way anti-Semitic."

The season finale of Simon Cowell's latest TV talent contest, The X Factor, attracted a record-breaking 44 percent of the British TV audience on Saturday, according to ITV, the commercial TV network that carried it. The contest, won by Leona Lewis of London, an office worker, reportedly delivered 12.6 million viewers, topping the 9.3 million for last season's finale. ITV said that 8 million viewers cast votes by phone. (Lewis's performance was quickly posted on YouTube.com.) The program was reportedly scheduled in such a way as to allow Cowell to resume, after a brief break, his role as a judge on Fox's American Idol next month.

Legendary animator Joseph Barbera, who with the late Bill Hanna, created the famed Hanna-Barbera animation studios, died Monday in Studio City, CA at age 95. Among numerous firsts, Hanna-Barbera created The Flintstones, the first primetime animated TV series. They also created Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, which lasted 17 seasons, the longest-running animated series in TV history. Their library of TV shows eventually became the foundation of Turner Broadcasting's The Cartoon Network.