It's hard to believe that ticket sales for the next Indiana Jones movie could be affected in the slightest by the remarks of an extra working on the film to an Oklahoma newspaper. But Marvin Levy, a spokesman for Steven Spielberg, who is directing the movie, told today's (Wednesday) New York Post, "Who knows whether that particular person will ever work in this town again?" The Post, which posted no spoiler alerts, noted that an extra, who was due to perform as a "dancing Russian soldier," told the Oklahoma paper that: 1. The story concerns a search by Indy and the Soviet army for a priceless skull made of crystal, hidden in the jungles of South America; 2. Indy is taken hostage by the Russians who threaten to kill his ex-girlfriend and mother of his son if he doesn't cooperate; 3. One of the Russians is played by Cate Blanchett who questions Indy in the movie. The extra, a ballet dancer who was trained at the Bolshoi, said that his own big scene comes when he celebrates Indy's capture by dancing to a balalaika. However, the Post remarked that Spielberg, who is said to be "furious" over the dancer's revelations, is likely to cut his scene from the film.

Although a few early premieres punctuated the period, last week nevertheless was officially regarded as the last week of the summer season -- and looked it. Most shows continued to draw relatively tiny audiences, and no new series broke into the top ten. NBC's Sunday Night Football, this week featuring the Dallas Cowboys against the Chicago Bears, continued to lead the Nielsen ratings list (13.3 million viewers), followed by CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which usually leads when the football season ends in January. Fox also got a boost on Sunday from an overrun of its NFL game in the 7:00 p.m. hour. But college football on Saturday night drew only 4.9 million viewers for ABC. CBS was the overall household winner for the week with a 5.8 rating and a 10 share. NBC placed second with a 5.0/8. Fox took the third spot with a 4.7/8, while ABC trailed with a 3.8/7.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. Sunday Night Football, NBC, 11.8/19; 2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 9.1/15; 3. Survivor: China, CBS, 9.0/15; 4. Sunday Night NFL Pregame, NBC, 8.7/15; 5. Cold Case, CBS, 8.2/12; 6. 60 Minutes, CBS, 7.6/13; 6. Shark, CBS, 7.6/13; 6. Without a Trace, CBS, 7.6/13; 9. Deal or No Deal (Monday), NBC, 7.5/12; 10. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 6.9/11.

Boston-based Brigham's Ice Cream Co. has announced the results of a survey it conducted over the summer to create a top-ten list of one-liners in movies. From what it said were thousands of entries, it narrowed the list to these: 1. "Are you talkin' to ME?," Taxi Driver; 2. "Go ahead. "Make my day," Dirty Harry; 3. "Here's lookin' at you, kid," Casablanca; 4. "I'll be back," The Terminator; 5. "I'll have what she's having," When Harry Met Sally; 6. "Life is like a box of chocolates," Forrest Gump; 7. "May the force be with you," Star Wars; 8. "You can't handle the truth!," A Few Good Men; 9. "You had me at hello," Jerry McGuire; 10. "You're gonna need a bigger boat!," Jaws. Conspicuously missing from the list was perhaps the most famous movie line of all: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," from Gone with the Wind, and the historic, "You ain't heard nothin' yet," from The Jazz Singer, the first sound movie. (And some may wonder about the non-inclusion of Garbo's "I vant to be alone" from Grand Hotel and the single word "Rosebud" from Citizen Kane.

Seeming to undermine contentions by movie studios that their accounting practices are transparent and that profit participants in their films are free to examine their records, a federal judge has fined New Line Cinema $125,000 for failing to provide sufficient documentation about its revenue for The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Director Peter Jackson has sued the Time Warner-owned company, demanding details of the studio's audits for the film. However U.S. Magistrate Steven Hillman ruled that New Line had provided only a fraction of the documents requested by Jackson's attorneys in the discovery phase of the trial.

A California appeals court on Tuesday upheld a trial judge's 2004 decision to toss out a lawsuit filed by the heirs of Stephen Slesinger, owners of the Winnie the Pooh rights, against the Walt Disney Co. because they had improperly searched Disney dumpsters looking for evidence and had thereby obtained thousands of pages of Disney documents, many of them marked privileged and confidential. Daniel Petrocelli, the attorney representing Disney in the lawsuit, had called the conduct of the Slesingers "an assault on the legal system." The heirs claim that Disney failed to pay royalties owed under a 1983 contract covering Pooh merchandise. A spokesman for the family said Tuesday that they would appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Court.

Market research firm Forrester Research, which has long predicted that Sony's Blu-ray system will eventually win out over Toshiba's HD DVD as the format of choice for high-definition home video, expressed concern Tuesday over Sony's strategy. In its latest report, Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder maintained that Blu-ray must be able to compete effectively with HD DVD on price and that if it does not, it can lose its current edge. Gownder said that Blu-ray must introduce a player below $250 by Christmas and be more aggressive in promoting the system. Meanwhile, Home Theater Specialists of America, a group of specialty HDTV dealers and installers, announced Monday that its members would only be installing Blu-ray players from now on. The announcement came as a study was released indicating that Blu-ray was already installed in 92 percent of home-theater installations in the U.S.

Fox and ABC duked it out Tuesday night, with Fox's House scoring a 10.7 rating and a 16 share in its season premiere at 9:00 p.m. It also drew the largest number of 18-49-year-old viewers for the night. But ABC's 90-minute Dancing with the Stars registered an 11.8/18 at 8:00 p.m. and peaked in its final half-hour at 9:00 p.m. with 13.0/19. Also at 9:00, the series debut of the critically praised Reaper (it received by far the best reviews of any new series of the season) on The CW only managed to score a 2.1/3.

The Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network plan to emphasize video on their websites beginning October 15 when they begin employing Maven Networks technology, Broadcasting & Cable reported today (Wednesday). In an interview with the trade publication, Maven CEO Hilmi Ozguc said, "If you go to FOXNews.com, it is mostly text and pictures and some video. In the future, my expectation is that you will see something that is more like interactive TV -- very, very video-centric. Obviously there will be text articles and pictures and so forth, but video will be front and center." Unlike previous online video delivery systems that limit the number of video streams that can be served up on the Web, the Maven system is "designed for millions of video assets, millions of video transactions happening simultaneously," Ozguc said. Jeff Misenti, head of Fox News Digital, said that the Maven technology puts Fox news "on the cutting edge of innovation in Internet-video syndication."

The Federal Communications Commission, which rarely monitors the content of cable TV shows, indicated Tuesday that it might fine Comcast $4,000 for airing a video news release without disclosing who had provided it. The video in question was included in Comcast's CN8 newscast, seen in 20 markets; it touted the benefits of an herbal tonic sold under the name of Nelson's Rescue Sleep, which, according to the video, were more effective than sleeping pills. Sena Fitzmaurice, a spokeswoman for Comcast, responded, "The relevant statute does not cover cable programming, and even if it did, CN8's programming was entirely consistent with the statute."

The British TV regulator OFCOM has fined the "breakfast network" GMTV $4 million for staging phony telephone contests between August 2003 and February 2007. It was the biggest fine ever imposed on a British broadcasting network. Revelations of the fraud resulted in the firing of the network's managing director, Paul Corley, and its competitions supervisor, Kate Fleming.