Although it was initially reported following Heath Ledger's death that writer-director Terry Gilliam would abandon his latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which Ledger was making at the time of his death, it now appears that Gilliam may go ahead with the film after all, using computer-generated images of Ledger. In an interview with People magazine, Imaginarium costar Christopher Plummer, remarked, "Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way perhaps of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI." Plummer said that Gilliam plans to dedicate the movie to Ledger.

When final box-office figures were counted up, only about $300,000 separated the take of the No. 1 film, Meet the Spartans, from the No. 2 film, Rambo, according to box-office trackers Media by Numbers. Spartans took in $18.5 million over the weekend, compared to Rambo's $18.2 million. Both films performed according to expectations, but several box-office gurus had predicted that Rambo would edge out Spartans, instead of the other way around. The Romantic comedy 27 Dresses held up well in its second week, to place third with $13.4 million, but last week's top hit, Cloverfield, suffered a monstrous setback, dropping more than 70 percent to $12.7 million. A third new release, the horror-thriller Untraceable, placed fifth with $11.3 million.

Five sound stages are currently being employed at Britain's Pinewood Studios to film the latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, with a cast and crew of more than 500, the Associated Press reported Monday. They are currently filming 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, in order to stay on a production schedule that will enable the film to be released on schedule on November 7, the wire service observed. "We have a crew that's all worked together, all know each other," producer Michael G. Wilson told A.P. "It's a good atmosphere."

The Al Gore global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth has set a new box-office record for a single theater in Japan, exhibitor Toho Cinema said Monday. In its first week at the Roppongi Hills multiplex near Tokyo, some 60,000 patrons paid an estimated 90 million yen ($850,000) to see the film. The controversial film grossed $23.8 million in the U.S.

Refusing to admit defeat, Toshiba has decided to buy a $2.7-million 30-second spot on next month's Super Bowl telecast to extol the virtues of the HD DVD high-definition video format. Many analysts have commented that since Warner Home Video decided to drop the format and go exclusively with Sony's Blu-ray format, HD DVD was as good as dead. Sales of HD DVD players have virtually ceased since the Warner Bros. decision, falling 88 percent, while Blu-ray players have soared 43 percent. (On Monday the HD DVD format received another blow when the Woolworth's chain in the U.K. said it would no longer stock HD DVD titles, pointing out that Blu-ray currently outsells HD DVD by a margin of 10-1.) One website depicted Toshiba's defiance with a still photo from a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a knight gamely continues a sword fight with King Arthur as his limbs are slashed off one at a time.

Since the FCC fined ABC $1.43 million for showing an actress's naked backside on an episode of NYPD Blue five years ago, the scene, which the FCC branded "indecent," has been been posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed nearly 1.3 million times in less than two days. Links to the video (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnsxFvCaZJ8) have been posted on numerous websites, which also carried numerous comments denouncing the FCC action. The British tech site The Register commented, "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has encouraged children to watch naked women on YouTube." The U.S. tech site Tech Dirt remarked similarly that if FCC Chairman Kevin Martin "really was trying to protect people from viewing such indecent content, perhaps he shouldn't have issued this fine. After all, it was shown on TV nearly five years ago. By now, most people would have forgotten about it... unless, of course, the FCC were to bring the clip back into the news, getting someone to put it on YouTube, and driving well over a million viewers to watch the video since the fine was announced." The FCC said that it had received thousands of complaints about the show; however, virtually all complaints about such content are usually generated by a single organization, Brent Bozell's Parents Television Council.

Despite encountering outrage from the American Academy of Pediatrics, ABC said Monday that it plans to go ahead with the planned broadcast of an episode of the new legal drama Eli Stone in which the title character convinces a jury that mercury in a vaccine was responsible for a child's autism. The Academy and numerous health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, dispute such claims, citing many studies that rule out any link between childhood vaccines and autism. In a statement, AAP President Dr. Renée Jenkins said, "A television show that perpetuates the myth that vaccines cause autism is the height of reckless irresponsibility." She said that if parents who watch the program "choose to deny their children immunizations, ABC will share in the responsibility for the suffering and deaths that occur as a result." The network said that it would agree to air a disclaimer at the opening of the show stating that the story is fictional.

In what appeared to some analysts as a surprise putsch, Liberty Media's John Malone took steps Monday to oust Barry Diller from IAC/InterActive Corp., the company that Diller founded, and whose holdings include the Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, Citysearch, Hotels.com, Ask.com, Match.com, and LendingTree.com. The action was apparently triggered by IAC's recently announced plan to spin off several of those businesses into new public companies under terms that would undermine Liberty's ability to control them. In a filing with Delaware Chancery Court, Liberty Media said that a "stockholder consent" that it sent to IAC removed Diller and others from the board and named new directors, including Liberty CEO Gregory Maffei, to replace them. The filing cited "misconduct" on Diller's part and criticized his compensation package. (He is regarded as the country's best-paid CEO.) Diller minced no words in responding to Liberty's action. "I am beginning to think these people are insane," he said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal."Everything they cite is hogwash."

A survey by media-buying powerhouse Carat indicates that since the writers' strike began in November, many TV fans are changing their typical viewing habits and show a greater willingness to watch reruns, check out programs that they have not seen in the past, and watch different "genres." The survey concluded that 72 percent of viewers are watching the same amount of primetime TV as they did before the strike; 25 percent are watching less; and 3 percent are watching more. Of those who said they now watch less TV, 54 percent said that they spend more time online instead, but of those, only 6 percent said that they visit websites to watch all or parts of TV shows.

Movie channel Starz, which, unlike other pay-TV cable outlets like HBO and Showtime, has never produced original dramatic programming, has signed a deal with Lionsgate to develop a series based on the 2004 movie Crash. Several of the movie's producers, including Paul Haggis, Don Cheadle, Bobby Moresco, Bob Yari, Mark R. Harris, and Tom Nunan, will also oversee the TV series. Haggis, who also co-wrote the screenplay of Crash, told Broadcasting & Cable magazine that he had originally envisioned it as a TV show. "I am thrilled that it's coming full circle and can't wait to see how it expands and transforms," he said.

The Writers Guild of America, which last week agreed not to picket the Grammy Awards, has now agreed to allow two writers to contribute to the production. In signing an interim agreement with the Recording Academy, WGA West President Patric Verrone said, "Professional musicians face many of the same issues that we do concerning fair compensation for the use of their work in new media."

British regulators have ordered News Corp-controlled BSkyB to cut its stake in ITV to 7.5 percent from its current 17.9 percent. Since acquiring the ITV holdings in 2006, BSkyB has seen them fall roughly by half. Forced to sell at current prices, it could lose about $500 million. BSkyB has until February 25 to file an appeal; it has not indicated whether it will do so. At the time the shares were purchased, Virgin Media chief Richard Branson had charged that BSkyB was attempting to block his bid to take over ITV by artificially boosting its share price.