‘Friends’ Stars To Appear On The Big Screen
Like the “Saturday Night Live” cast, members of the “Friends” ensemble have been securing movie roles for their summer vacations.
Matthew Perry is the latest: Late next spring he’ll film a comedy called “Fools Rush In,” for which he’ll take home $1 million. He’ll star as a nightclub booker whose one-night stand with a dancer turns into pregnancy, marriage and then love.
Meanwhile, David Schwimmer’s “The Pallbearer” is in the pipeline; Courteney Cox is co-starring in “Commandment”; Jennifer Aniston is in “Till There Was You” and “She’s the One,” Ed Burn’s follow-up to “The Brothers McMullen”; and Matt LeBlanc is in “Ed.” Lisa Kudrow is eyeing projects at the moment.
Sitcom stars visit shows
You know it’s sweeps time when a network, even if it’s Thursday-night kingpin NBC, proposes a stunt like “Star-Crossed Thursday.” On Nov. 2, you can expect a bunch of crossover appearances from the network’s sitcom stars as their regular characters. (It’s not such a stretch, since all the shows are set in New York.)
The evening kicks off with Lea Thompson (“Caroline in the City”) appearing on “Friends.” Then, David Schwimmer (“Friends”) guest-stars on “The Single Guy,” with Matthew Perry (“Friends”) and Jonathan Silverman (“The Single Guy”) crossing over to “Caroline in the City.”
‘Today’ scores without Gumbel
NBC contract negotiators probably didn’t take note, but during the week that Bryant Gumbel missed Tuesday through Friday on the “Today” show - after being told he wouldn’t be on the team for the aborted “interview” with O.J. Simpson - the morning show somehow managed to score its biggest winning margin over ABC’s “Good Morning America” in six years.
For the week ending Oct. 13, “Today” did a 4.6 rating and a 21 share, six-tenths of a point over the 4.0/18 for “GMA.” The last Pre-Live Audience “CBS This Morning” did a 2.3/10.
Gumbel’s contract is up at the end of November, and with co-anchor Katie Couric due to embark on maternity leave shortly after the holidays, he would still seem to be in the driver’s seat on negotiations. However, there are those at the network who are fed up with Gumbel’s penchant for taking time off whenever he’s displeased with the way things are going in the office, especially at negotiating time.
CNN web site powerful
You no longer need a television to get CNN.
The 24-hour cable TV news channel launched a cyberspace equivalent late last month on the World Wide Web. CNN claims its home page () is the only one with constantly updated news, including sound and video clips.
The page provides more than just news. There’s also background and context for major stories. For example, it maintains a Balkan Tragedy page with a time line and history of the region and its war.
CNN’s Web site has a full-time staff of 45 and 1,200 pages of information. They are adding to the list by 50 to 100 pages a day. So far, the site has 500 megabytes of information.
Right now, access to CNN’s Web site is free. The Atlanta-based company, part of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., hopes to keep it that way by attracting advertising support.
New ‘Stars Wars’ story in game
A new “Star Wars” story that takes place between the time of the movies “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” will be told through a video game being created for a new Nintendo game system now in development.
Nintendo of America Inc. and LucasArts Entertainment Co. announced that the two companies will work together to produce “Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire” for the Ultra 64 platform, to be introduced next year. The platform, featuring computing technologies from Silicon Graphics, originally was to be introduced this year but was pushed back until April and now is slated for spring 1996. It will be priced at less than $250.
A book and comic version of “Shadows” will be released simultaneously. Trading cards and toy tie-ins are also in the works.
The game will feature real-time 3-D graphics.
Lucas is preparing a 20thanniversary edition of “Star Wars” to be released theatrically in 1997, followed by three successive new sequels to the original trilogy in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
‘Missing link’ hot in Hollywood
The evolutionary “missing link” is a hot property in Hollywood these days. DreamWorks SKG has paid a cool seven figures for “Neanderthal,” a novel-in-progress by journalist John Darnton. This sale follows by less than three weeks the purchase by 20th Century Fox of the novel “Almost Adam,” which also concerns the search for the so-called missing link between apes and early man.
Sources said that while DreamWorks did not specifically buy the property for company principal Steven Spielberg to direct, the tale - with hints of early Indiana Jones - may eventually catch his directorial eye.
Publishing rights to “Neanderthal” have already been sold to Random House. The book is scheduled to be published next summer.