Mr. Spielberg will not build his dream house -- at least, not now. In a formal statement headed "DreamWorks Closes Books on Playa Vista, " the company that Steven Spielberg founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announced that it had decided not to proceed with building a 47-acre, state-of-the-art studio in Playa Vista, a project bedeviled with obstacles since it was first announced in 1995. Although DreamWorks cited its inability to arrange suitable terms for financing as the primary reason for deciding to abandon the project, Katzenberg was quoted in the statement as saying, "It is clear that this move is no longer in DreamWorks' best interest. It was simply not meant to be." (Today's -- Friday -- Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, said that the financing problems could have been solved if the three partners had been willing to put up a greater part of the projected costs themselves, but they declined to do so.) However, in the same statement, Spielberg commented, "Building our own studio has been a dream ... since the inception of our company, and not building at Playa Vista in no way deters us from that goal."

The small, art-house film Tea with Mussolini (1999), has turned out to be just the right cup of tea for adult, sophisticated audiences who have made it the only money maker for MGM since last year's The Man in the Iron Mask the Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday). The film, which cost only a fraction of any current blockbuster and can be seen on only 285 screens nationwide, has been helped by strong word of mouth, the inclusion of Cher and Judi Dench in the cast at a time when they're in the public spotlight, considerable critical praise and numerous hurrahs from talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, the Times indicated. The film's success is also attributed to MGM's new management team, which has transformed the studio's United Artists label into a unit overseeing independent films.

Meanwhile, the Times observed, MGM continues to struggle with a slate of probable losers that were the product of the previous regime. It has decided not to release Extreme Adventures of Super Dave, The (1999) theatrically, sending it straight to video, and to give only a token release to Molly (1999), starring Elisabeth Shue, in order to satisfy contractual obligations. According to the newspaper, MGM is also planning to limit its marketing and take write-downs for Walter Hill's Supernova (1999) (which cost $70 million), Stigmata (1999), starring Gabriel Byrne and Patricia Arquette, and One Man's Hero (1999), starring Tom Berenger.

Like other Spike Lee movies, his Summer of Sam (1999) is being greeted with wildly mixed reviews. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times awards a "thumbs up" salute to it (and 3 1/2 stars), commenting: "Lee's best films thrum with a wound-up energy, and Summer of Sam (1999) vibrates with fear, guilt and lust." But Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times finds much of the movie "shocking and disturbing" not because of its message, but because "it's hard to see what purpose the depictions of beatings and killings serve." Rod Dreher in the New York Post concludes that the film is "an interesting failure, an ambitious misfire, " while Mike Clark in USA Today similarly concludes, "Sam has too much personality to be termed a turkey, but like even Lee's best, it's overstuffed."

Djimon Hounsou has indicated that since his appearance in Amistad (1997) two years ago, he has had to contend with an image problem. In an interview with USA Today columnist Jeannie Williams, Hounsou, a Golden Globe nominee for Amistad, said, "A lot of people in the industry are almost shocked to find I do speak English, that I'm in America." He says that he still has to go through the process of proving to producers that he is able to act -- in English. Moreover, he says, he faces the additional challenge that black actors have traditionally contended with: "You have to fight and fight for them to think of a role as being black because they've been thinking white, white, white." He indicated that the battle with producers has left him disheartened. "I still love making movies, " he said. "I'm just disappointed in that whole aspect of Hollywood."

Universal Studios Florida theme park is the most costly theme park for a family of four to visit, according to the trade publication Amusement Business. A family would pay $225 for tickets for two adults, two children, parking, food and two kids-sized T-shirts at the Orlando park compared with the $141.32 average price at other theme parks nationwide, a survey by the magazine concluded. Walt Disney World and Busch Gardens, also in the Orlando area, followed close behind.

CBS Evening News with Dan Rather saw the size of its audience shrink 12 percent in the second quarter from its 1998 level, according to figures from Nielsen Research. The newscast currently attracts nearly 1.6 million fewer viewers than NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and 1.5 million fewer than World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Commenting on the numbers, New York Post TV writer Adam Buckman writes today (Friday) that local newscasts, cable news networks and the Internet are making network nightly newscasts "irrelevant." "Sooner or later, some exec at some network is going to successfully make the case that his network doesn't need an evening newscast -- that it can make more money with something else. Unless things improve at CBS Evening News, that scenario could become reality at CBS.

Manifesting yet another sign of contentiousness between the networks and their affiliates, Boston's NBC outlet WHDH-TV has been refusing to delay its Thursday-night newscast to allow NBC to squeeze in another 20-second commercial following E.R., the Boston Globe reported Thursday. NBC had claimed it needed the additional revenue from the spot to help cover the huge costs of the hospital drama. However, execs at the Boston station said that any delay would encourage viewers to tune in to another station. "They have no business encroaching on our local time, '' Channel 7 general manager Michael Carson told the Globe. ''Partners can disagree, but partners should sit down and show empathy for one another and discuss solutions, and that's not what's been going on. There's a network arrogance that has clouded all these issues."

Loni Anderson, the voluptuous actress who costarred on WKRP in Cincinnati two decades ago and whose marriage to Bert Reynolds served as fodder for the tabloids subsequently, has been cast as Pamela Anderson Lee's mother in a forthcoming episode of the syndicated series V.I.P. Pamela Anderson Lee, (presumably she is not actually related to Loni), who also co-produces the show, has said in the past that one of the purposes of it was to "poke fun" at Hollywood glamour. The episode with the two Andersons was to begin shooting today (Friday).

Coinciding with this weekend's release of Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999), (see separate item in Film section), the History Channel is planning to air a special Movies in Time feature about the movie and the summer of 1977 on Monday night at 11:00 p.m. Columnist Jimmy Breslin, who appears in the Lee film, will participate in a discussion hosted by Sander Vanocur.

In a dramatic move, Rupert Murdoch has reportedly given the go-ahead to accelerate the switch of British satellite broadcaster BSkyB from analog to digital by the end of next year, two years earlier than the original target date. Today's (Friday) London Telegraph reported that BSkyB executives had determined that the company is being valued by the size of its digital subscriber base and that investors are asking why the analog subscribers continue to exist, given the fact that the company has offered to provide free digital decoder boxes. Meanwhile, Murdoch, at a London news conference on Thursday, announced that "there will be no merger" between BSkyB and French satellite broadcaster Canal Plus. Murdoch said that he didn't want to allow BSkyB to "become a football for French politicians."