Director Gregory Nava (Selena, American Family) said today (Thursday) that he received death threats during the production of Bordertown, his film about the unsolved murders of dozens of women in Juarez, Mexico that is competing for the top Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. Nava told a news conference at the festival that he was obliged to shoot the majority of the film, including all scenes involving its stars, Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas, in other border towns "because it was too dangerous. ... There were people [in Juarez] who didn't want the movie to be made." Nava did not indicate who had made the threats. But executive producer Barbara Martinez Jitner, who took a five-man crew to Juarez to shoot some scenes with actors doubling for the stars, fingered Juarez police. She said that a production assistant was picked up by police and was beaten and forced to reveal where the crew would be filming; her hotel room was broken into; the crew was followed, "until finally we had to hire a gunman to stand next to the camera so that I could get footage for this movie ... until mysteriously our cameras were stolen and we had to end the shoot." (In August, three Mexican men were arrested in the U.S. and deported to Juarez, where they were charged with the murders. They have denied the charges.)

Pop music's second-biggest scandal -- the payola scandal of the late 1950s topped them all -- in which it was revealed that the members of Milli Vanilli, Fabrice Morvan and the late Rob Pilatus, did not sing on their records and merely lip-synced to the recordings of studio performers is about to become a movie, Daily Variety reported today (Thursday). The trade publication said that the film about the duo will be written and directed by Jeff Nathanson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy. "I've always been fascinated by the notion of fakes and frauds, and in this case, you had guys who pulled off the ultimate con, selling 30 million singles and 11 million albums and then becoming the biggest laughingstocks of pop entertainment," Nathanson told Variety.

Legendary visual effects artist Peter Ellenshaw, who painted the numerous panoramic scenes in such Disney films as Treasure Island, 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea, Darby O'Gill and the Little People and Mary Poppins, for which he won an Oscar, died Monday in Santa Barbara at age 93. In a statement, Roy Disney, former chairman of Disney feature animation, said: "He was a brilliant and innovative visual effects pioneer who was able to consistently please my Uncle Walt and push the boundaries of the medium to fantastic new heights."

Students at the National University of Ireland's Galway campus were forced to shut down a stage version of Disney's 1992 feature Sister Act after Disney threatened legal action, citing copyright issues. Jeff Rockett, who was producing the play to benefit the university's gay and lesbian students' society, told the Irish Times: "Six months of hard work, all for nothing. Cast and crew had given up their weekends and any spare time to rehearse and promote the play. ... They are simply in disbelief that something they have poured their hearts and souls into has been destroyed by an organization that has brought joy to many of them in their younger years."

Despite the fact that it was moved into the 10:00 p.m. hour to protect it against competition from Fox's American Idol, ABC's onetime hit Lost registered its lowest ratings ever Wednesday night. Its 8.5 rating and 14 share was more than 25 percent below its season average at 9:00 p.m. before it went on hiatus after just six episodes last October. Meanwhile, CBS's Criminal Minds, which was already attracting more viewers than Lost at the time of the hiatus, continued to show solid strength against American Idol Wednesday night. The CBS drama scored a 10.4 rating and a 15 share. Nevertheless, Idol overwhelmed them all, recording a 16.8 rating and a 25 share to remain the top-rated show of the night.

Two days after ratings for NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip sank to their lowest level of the season, the network announced Wednesday that it is pulling the show off its schedule one week earlier than it had originally planned. Beginning Monday, March 5, the critically praised but ratings-challenged Studio 60 will be replaced by the mob drama The Black Donnellys. NBC executives continue to maintain that they will stick with the Aaron Sorkin comedy and that additional episodes will air later this season, although no date for its return has been announced. The industry publication Television Week commented on its website today (Thursday): "NBC's change in schedule following Monday's performance may signal that the likelihood of a cancellation is increasing."

Although denying that he is reacting to growing international criticism, Howard Gordon, an executive producer of Fox's 24, has disclosed that the show plans to cut back on torture scenes. "What was once an extraordinary or exceptional moment is starting to feel a little trite. The idea of physical coercion or torture is no longer a novelty or surprise," Gordon told today's (Thursday) Philadelphia Inquirer. "It's not something that we, as writers, want to use as a crutch. We'd like to find other ways for Jack to get information out of suspects," he added. Gordon's comments came after the New Yorker magazine reported that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an eminent military lawyer, had flown to California to meet producers of the show. Finnegan reportedly told the producers that promoting illegal behavior on the show was having a damaging effect on U.S. troops in Iraq. Finnegan told the magazine, "The kids see it and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about 24?'" In response, Gordon told the Inquirer,"The thesis that we are affecting our soldiers in Iraq in their treatment of prisoners is being exaggerated, I think. Hopefully, there are a lot of filters between their watching 24 and their work in the field."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani used CNN's Larry King Live as the venue to announced his candidacy for the presidency Wednesday night -- and King seemingly couldn't believe his ears. The conversation went like this: King: "Are you running or not?." Giuliani: "Yes, I'm running, sure." King: "When would you -- do you make an official announcement or is this it here, right now?" Giuliani: "I guess you do. ..." King: "You just said, 'I'm running.'" Giuliani: "Yes, I'm running."

Nancy Reagan has invited the leading Republican presidential candidates to participate in a debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA on May 3, which will be carried live by MS NBC. "Ronnie always hoped the library would be a place where policymakers will debate the future," the former first lady said in a statement. "This presidential debate provides the opportunity to fulfill his wishes." Viewers will be able to submit questions to the candidates via the MSNBC website.

ABC News last week secretly shot two pilots for an hour-long version of Nightline, one anchored by Cynthia McFadden, another co-anchored by McFadden and Martin Bashir, the New York Observer reported Wednesday, citing three unnamed sources familiar with the project. An expanded Nightline would result in the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Observer TV columnist Rebecca Dana quoted her sources as saying that ABC was motivated by a desire to cut its losses from the Jimmy Kimmel show. While Nightline also operates at a loss, Dana wrote, "Given the fixed costs of putting on a broadcast, a majority of Nightline's senior management believes that the extra advertising revenue from stretching the show to an hour could put the program in the black for the first time in a long while." An ABC exec appeared to acknowledge that the network had produced the pilots, but cautioned Dana "not to read a whole lot into this," adding: "We are always experimenting and trying things."

NBC has named Chuck Todd, a 34-year-old online political pundit, to head its political coverage. Todd has been the editor-in-chief of the National Journal's "The Hotline," a daily briefing on national politics, produced in Washington. The network said that Todd will appear as an analyst on NBC Nightly News, the Today show, Meet the Press, and also on MSNBC. He'll also write a weekly column for MSNBC.com. Todd thus joins a sizable exodus of online journalists making the transition to the mainstream media.