hollywood

Move over Hotforwords, Lonelygirl15, and all the other YouTube stars. The video site is bringing in more professionally made content and plans to make it a marquee product.

The Internet's largest video site on Thursday announced that it has struck deals with a host of entertainment companies, including Sony Pictures, CBS (parent company of CNET News), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, Starz, and the BBC, to acquire "thousands" of TV episodes and hundreds of films. The new content will only be available in the United States.

YouTube executives also said during a conference call that they have redesigned part of … Read more

How much do Vin Diesel and Jason Statham actually resemble the characters they play? You can tell a lot by what a person drives, and our research shows that while one may indeed be the transporter, the other isn't quite so furious. We also looked for tidbits on what other Hollywood stars drive, and came up with the goods on Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, and Seth Green, among others.

Read on to find out which stars go with which cars.

Matt Webb pointed out in his LIFT presentation today that humans “take pleasure in watching things unfold.” True – even if the events are a quasi-authentic account of something that has already happened.

Coincidentally, the Spanish site Per Soitu reports about a fascinating example of “fake authenticity” and the emerging trend of using Twitter for storytelling. On February 23, 2009, exactly 28 years after about 200 soldiers and paramilitary members of the Spanish Civil Guard toppled remnants of General Franco's dictatorship, a group of Spanish Twitterers revived minute by minute the historical coup d'etat that occurred on February 23, … Read more

YouTube reportedly wants the William Morris Agency to make it a star.

The video-sharing site is reportedly close to clinching a deal with the William Morris Agency, in which the talent agency's clients would create videos for YouTube, according to a report Thursday in The New York Times.

The deal apparently would give William Morris Agency clients an ownership stake in videos they create for YouTube, and, in return, YouTube would receive professionally produced videos, according to the Times report.

For YouTube and its owner Google, the question is whether such efforts will eventually generate advertising revenue.

YouTube and … Read more

Apple is an Internet retailer and Netflix is a Web video rental service, but Hollywood treats them as if they are potential competitors to TV broadcasters.

In the past two weeks, customers of iTunes and Netflix's streaming digital-movie service have noticed that a growing number of titles are disappearing from the sites or are scheduled to be removed. MacWorld wrote a story last week about how one of the site's contributors noticed that of the 15 films he bookmarked for future viewing at iTunes, 9 were no longer available. Among the movies that vanished were Charlie Wilson's … Read more

Updated at 8:16 a.m. to include mention of ZDNet's review of YouTube's filtering system.

YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month, according to an executive with a major entertainment company.

For months, Google, YouTube's parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service, two execs with knowledge of the negotiations told CNET News. "It's not imminent," said one of the executives. "But it's going to happen. … Read more

Hollywood.com announced on Monday that it has officially completed its acquisition of Media By Numbers, a site that specializes in delivering box office numbers and analysis on the latest movies to hit theaters. Financial details were not disclosed.

"The synergies that exist within Hollywood.com and Media by Numbers create an extremely powerful combination that will allow us to realize our full potential and better showcase our services," Media by Numbers President Paul Dergarabedian said.

The Media By Numbers acquisition is part of a bigger plan on the part of Hollywood.com. Obviously feeling the heat from … Read more

A group of the biggest Hollywood studios said Wednesday that they will invest more than $1 billion to upgrade 20,000 North American movie theaters to digital projector systems.

According to Reuters, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and Lions Gate Entertainment have reached a pact with investors, including Blackstone Group and JPMorgan Chase. The work would begin in 2009 and could take as much as 3 and 1/2 years to complete.

For some time, the studios have wanted to embark on the upgrade project, Reuters wrote, but have been unable to nail down the financing. But … Read more

Hollywood is starting to take note of a Silicon Valley start-up that claims to possess the answer to its Web-advertising woes: the trick, according to the company, is to take an opposite approach to DRM.

Managers at FreeWheel say one of the reasons TV networks and film studios are reluctant to syndicate their content widely on the Web is piracy. The other main reason is that it's hard to track, control, and manage their own ads when they're dispersed across dozens of sites.

FreeWheel says it has the answer, and some in the entertainment sector agree. About 15 … Read more