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Michael Jackson top earner among dead celebrities - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson was named this year's top-earning dead celebrity on Tuesday in a list compiled by financial website Forbes.com, earning the title for the second year in a row following his death in 2009.

"Thriller" singer Jackson, who died aged 50 of a drug overdose, is estimated to have earned $170 million in the past year, which also places him as the second highest-earning pop music act this year, dead or alive, Forbes.com said.

Jackson's physician at the time of his death, Dr. Conrad Murray, is currently on trial in Los Angeles, charged with involuntary manslaughter for administering the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid for the singer in Jackson's home. Murray has pleaded not guilty.

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Magnolia Pictures acquires rights to "Waltz" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Magnolia Pictures has picked up U.S. rights to Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz," which premiered at the Toronto film festival last month.

Magnolia announced Monday that it plans "a robust theatrical release" early in the summer of 2012. It also plans a significant film festival presence and a release through Magnolia's Ultra VoD program.

The movie stars Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Luke Kirby and Sarah Silverman and is about a woman who struggles to choose between her husband, whom she loves, and the handsome artist who lives across the street.

Susan Cavan produced with Polley.

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Matt Reeves heading to "The Twilight Zone" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Warner Bros. wants "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves to take on "The Twilight Zone," TheWrap has confirmed.

Reeves is in negotiations with the studio to direct the latest iteration of Rod Serling's creepy television series.

The movie's not yet greenlit, so it's still officially in the development stage. But it has the significant backing of Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran, who are producing.

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MTV searching for next "Beavis" - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - On October 27 "Beavis and Butthead" will return to the airwaves almost 15 years after it left. What you may not know is that MTV, which originally aired the show, is now looking for the next "Beavis and Butthead."

Mike Judge's seminal show got its start on "Liquid Television," a show that promoted boundary-pushing animation in the early 1990s. In addition to "Beavis," "Liquid Television" was also home to shows such as "Aeon Flux" and "Cartoon Sushi."

MTV announced the return of "Liquid Television" on Thursday, only this time across all platforms and with the archives from the old shows available for viewing.

It will begin digitally with its recently launched website Tumblr and Facebook page. However, its content will also appear on-air, as it did Thursday night when a music video form "Wallpaper" aired after "Jersey Shore."

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Judge tosses Iraq vet's lawsuit over 'Hurt Locker' - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by an Iraq war veteran who claimed "The Hurt Locker" was based on his experiences as a bomb disposal expert.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Nguyen ends Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver's case against the producers of the Oscar-winning film, its screenwriter and director Kathryn Bigelow.

Sarver sued over the film days before it went on to win best picture at the Academy Awards in 2010. He claimed screenwriter Mark Boal based the film on him and that he was presented in a false light and suffered ridicule from fellow service members because of it.

Nguyen rejected those arguments and ruled that Sarver was unlikely to win the case if it proceeded.

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Wall Street climbs on Slovakia talks optimism - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened higher on Wednesday, putting the S&P 500 on track for its sixth winning day in the past seven on optimism that Slovakia would reach a deal to expand the euro zone rescue fund.

Slovakian lawmakers were expected to ratify the rescue fund plan. The country's parliament failed to approve a deal on Tuesday as the opposition party abstained as a way to help topple the government. Slovakia is the last country in the 17-member currency zone left to approve it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in, saying she expected full ratification by the European Union summit on October 23.

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Special report: China's debt pileup raises risk of hard landing - Yahoo! News

CHENGDU/WUHAN, China (Reuters) - When China announced a nearly $600 billion package to ward off the 2008 global financial crisis, city planners across the country happily embarked on a frenzy of infrastructure projects, some of them of arguable need.

Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, answered the call for stimulus action with a bold plan for a railway hub modeled after Waterloo railway station in London.

Except London's Waterloo was not ambitious enough.

"I was shocked when I finally got to visit Waterloo. It was so small," said Chen Jun, a director at Chengdu Communications Investment Group, which built the new Chinese terminal. "I realized we would probably need a station a few times bigger to meet the demands of our city."

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Colorado approves 2 leases for Christo project - Yahoo! News

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado State Land Board has approved two leases for the artist Christo's proposed Over the River project, which would temporarily suspend huge fabric panels over the Arkansas River.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is expected to decide this fall on a permit for Christo's proposal. But its preferred alternative, released this summer, sticks closely to the proposal by Christo and his late wife to suspend 5.9 miles worth of fabric over parts of the river.

The State Land Board said Friday it approved a five-year, 7.7-acre lease to Christo's team so the project could be built, shown and removed. It approved a 10-year, 130-acre lease with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to create a corridor and habitat for affected bighorn sheep.

The leases will generate roughly $26,000 for schools.

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Clooney, Gosling shine in "Ides of March" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Moneyball" pushes the theory that baseball games aren't won by the best players but rather by those who can just consistently get on base. And now comes "The Ides of March" to remind us that nothing in politics -- not ideas, not image, not intelligence -- matters as much as winning elections.

And you really don't want to know the lengths to which people will go to score that victory.

Our guide through the sausage-making hell that is political primary season is Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), a hotshot young consultant who's already a seasoned veteran of this world.

While he's generally a cool customer, Stephen is obviously starry-eyed about the campaign of Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney), the kind of liberal dream-candidate who's politically viable only in the movies.

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Ewan McGregor cooks up a feast in disaster flick - Yahoo! News

LONDON (AP) — Scottish actor Ewan McGregor dons a chef's hat in director David Mackenzie's indie disaster flick "Perfect Sense."

The romance is set against the backdrop of a pandemic that takes out people's senses one by one, which McGregor sees as "a nice metaphor." He explains that "when we fall in love we lose our senses" anyway.

In reality, McGregor doesn't buy into the hype of a global pandemic, saying "I always think its not going to come to much."

And what if he had just one last meal to enjoy before he lost his sense of taste forever?

He says "I really like eggs. It would be a boiled egg, somehow it doesn't get much better than that on a piece of toast."

"Perfect Sense" is being released in the U.K. on Friday.

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