Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced plans to collaborate with Indian film director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) and Indian composer A.R. Rehman for his next musical, Bombay Dreams. Webber, who has been working with Kapur on a film version of his The Phantom of the Opera told the BBC Wednesday that the new stage show will concern a young man making his way to Bombay with dreams of becoming a star in the Indian film industry. He said that he had asked Rehman to write the score for the show after seeing a number of his "Bollywood" musicals, including one in which a song and dance number is performed on the roof of a speeding train. "This is the first time I have invited another composer to write a musical for the stage, " he said.

Spike Lee is reportedly angry over Sony's decision not to bring him on to direct its upcoming biography of Muhammad Ali, the New York Daily News reported today (Wednesday). The newspaper quoted a source friendly with Lee as saying, "Spike felt that only a black man could do justice to the story of Cassius Clay Ali's name at birth. ... He still feels that way." A production source told the Daily News that executives at Sony's Columbia unit felt that if Lee directed, "it would become a narrow, militant movie. They thought Michael Mann could deliver a mainstream movie."

Bringing the U.S. Postal Service its most embarrassing publicity since the arrest of a mail carrier in Dayton, OH last year for failing to deliver 30, 000 pieces of mail, postal authorities acknowledged Tuesday that some 4, 000 Oscar ballots were erroneously diverted to a bulk-mail warehouse and held there, despite the fact that they bore first-class postage. Meanwhile, the Academy mailed out fresh ballots Tuesday containing yellow return envelopes to prevent multiple voting. (The original ones were white.) The post office promised that the new ballots would receive expedited handling.

Nickelodeon president Herb Scannell is hailing the success of the company's low-budget Snow Day (2000) which has earned $49.3 million in four weeks. "We will make more money than The Beach, " Scannell told today's New York Daily News. "This movie captured people's imaginations, " he added. The newspaper's business columnist, Phyllis Furman, observed that many analysts believed Nickelodeon had blundered with the movie, by casting the out-of-favor Chevy Chase in the lead and not exploiting one of its bankable franchises like Rugrats instead. (The film was also skewered by critics.) But, Furman suggested, analysts didn't reckon with the power of the Nickelodeon channel itself which, she said, "relentlessly promoted" the movie on the air.

David Geffen has privately complained to executives of media giant Bertelsmann and its Random House publishing subsidiary that a new book about him is filled with inaccuracies, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The book The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells the New Hollywood by Wall Street Journal writer Tom King, depicts Geffen as a ruthless figure in both personal and financial dealings. Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum told the A.P.: "We keep hearing from Geffen that the book is filled with inaccuracies, but we're still waiting for a single citation to that effect."

For the first time in nearly 30 years, the cost of making a movie actually went down last year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The organization released figures at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas showing that the average cost of making a movie and marketing it declined 2.6 percent to $76 million last year from $78 million in 1998. Speaking to the assembled exhibitors Tuesday, MPAA president Jack Valenti said, "There is a diligence, a discipline, a connection to reality that has invaded the thinking of every major studio."

Meanwhile, ticket prices rose an average of 38 cents to $5.08 last year (in some large cities they neared $10), driven up by the costs of constructing new theaters and refurbishing others. Nevertheless, John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, which sponsors ShoWest, insisted that the ticket prices continue to represent a bargain. "I think patrons are willing to pay a lot more for our new theaters, " he told the Associated Press Tuesday.

In the latest challenge to AOL Moviefone, six major theater chains are expected to announce today (Wednesday) that they will form a new company to sell movie tickets online and over the telephone, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The partners include Loews Cineplex, Cinemark USA, Regal Cinemas, Edwards Cinemas, General Cinema Theaters, and Century Theaters. They are expected to announce plans to launch this summer, possibly employing technology to allow tickets to be printed at home. A similar venture was recently announced by exhibitor AMC and entertainment Web site Hollywood.com.

Environmental groups joined forces in Thailand Tuesday to call for a worldwide boycott of 20th Century Fox's The Beach (2000) The groups claimed that Thai authorities ignored warnings and allowed the film studio to make major alterations at the location of the movie, Maya Bay on Phi Phi island, a national park. The groups waved posters showing pictures of the site, before, during and after the production. Wearing a Leonardo DiCaprio mask, environmental activist Manit Sriwanichpoom, urged Thais not to be caught up in the craze surrounding the movie's star. Today's (Wednesday) Bangkok Post quoted him as saying, "All I ask is don't go see it. This is when we will know the heart of Thai people."

A political controversy has arisen in Australia over a meeting between a representative of the MPAA and the country's attorney general during which the MPAA rep urged the government to shut down a Sydney Web site that distributes software allowing DVDs to be copied, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today (Wednesday). The software, called DeCSS, was originally intended to allow persons with computers using the Linux operating system to watch DVDs, but it can also be used to copy DVDs onto hard drives of other computers or onto blank DVDs. However, computer experts say that using the system for copying DVDs is expensive and impractical. As reported by the Herald, one opposition legislator commented Tuesday: "I am at a loss to explain why the Government is entertaining a formal approach from an organization that is operating outside its jurisdiction and using intimidating means to secure their market space."

The upper half of the top-ten Nielsen list for last week was filled with the title of one show: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. With E.R. showing a rerun, Millionaire had no problem dominating the ratings, with Wednesday's edition pulling in 32 million viewers. The show once again put ABC at the top of the heap with an average 10.9 rating for the week and an 18 share. CBS was in second place with an 8.5/14. NBC was third with a 7.5/12 while Fox dropped to a 5.9/9.

Although interest in the Millionaire quiz showed no signs of waning, some analysts urged ABC to rethink its saturation policy with the show. Bill Carrol of media buyers Katz Television told Bloomberg News Tuesday: "It's like opening the door and all the candy you want is there for the taking -- it's great, but after awhile you realize you can only eat so much candy."

The top twenty shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Wednesday) 3/1(S), ABC, 20.7/32; 2. Millionaire (Tuesday), ABC, 20.0/30; 3. Millionaire (Monday) 2/28(S), ABC, 18.8/28; 4. Millionaire (Thursday), ABC, 18.4/28; 5. Millionaire (Sunday), ABC, 17.5/26; 6. 60 Minutes, CBS, 13.9/24; 7. Friends, NBC, 12.6/21; 8. Law and Order, NBC, 12.5/21; 9. Drew Carey Show, ABC, 12.0/18; 10. Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 11.6/17; 11. Dharma & Greg, ABC, 11.5/17; 12. Judging Amy, CBS, 11.2/18; 13. The Practice, ABC, 110./18; 13. Touched By an Angel CBS, 110./17; 15. Dateline (Friday), NBC, 10.8/19; 15. E.R., NBC, 10.8/19; 17. Jesse, NBC, 10.7/17; 18. NYPD Blue, ABC, 10.6/17; 19. Frasier, NBC, 10.5/16; 19. JAG, CBS, 10.5/16.

Saying that it is "rethinking" its advertising strategy, Revlon has cut back its sponsorship of the Academy Awards telecast from ten commercials to just two. Today's (Wednesday) New York Daily News quoted a company spokesman as denying that the cutbacks were related to Revlon's current financial problems. (Shares in the cosmetics company which traded as high as 30 1/4 on the NYSE last June have plunged to 10 5/8 -- as of Tuesday). The Revlon spokesman told the Daily News that the company was not cutting back on its TV advertising dollars -- that the money it saves on the Oscars will be "reinvested" in other TV ads.

Paramount's TV syndication unit is about to cancel its low-rated talk show Leeza, featuring Leeza Gibbons, the online edition of Broadcasting & Cable magazine is reporting, citing unnamed sources. However, a Paramount spokeswoman told the trade magazine that it is "too early to be making those assumptions." Gibbons is reportedly being considered as a replacement for Kathie Lee Gifford on the daytime talk show that Gifford co-hosts with Regis Philbin

As expected, NBC has formally pulled out of the National Association of Broadcasters. The network has repeatedly criticized the group for opposing efforts to end regulations limiting the number of TV stations that can be owned by a single broadcasting company. Explaining the network's decision, NBC president and CEO Bob Wright said in a statement, "Given the NAB's continued unwillingness to embrace a forward-looking strategy aimed at securing significant deregulatory relief for the television industry, we find ourselves with no other alternative."

ABC News correspondent Judy Muller has told USA Today that she and others in the TV news business are feeling increasingly "frantic" over its current demands. In today's climate, she said, "you do what people want to know, what will bring in the most audiences and sell the most advertising. Although most of us in this business work hard to keep our standards up, there are increasingly a lot of pressures to keep that audience up. From the inside, it's increasingly frustrating to a lot of us."

Saying that it could lead to a cheaper way of producing high-definition television sets, Japan's Hitachi corporation and Equator Technologies of the U.S. have announced the development of a new processor, capable of billions of calculations per second, that will allow HDTV to be delivered via upgradable software rather than through fixed hardware. The companies say that they have begun shipping samples of the $40 processor, called MAP-CA, which, they claim, "sets a new world standard for cost-effective image computing."

The Scottish High Court in Edinburgh has rejected a bid by a group of broadcasters, including ABC, CBS, CNN and the BBC, to televise the trial of the two Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The court sided with government arguments that televising the proceedings could compromise the safety of witnesses and might even dissuade some from even showing up.