James Franco's Bad NYU Grade Gets the Taiwanese Animation Treatment

On Monday, news broke that one of James Franco's NYU professors was (allegedly) fired for giving the 'Spider-Man' actor a D in acting class. "In my opinion, they've turned the NYU graduate film degree into swag for James Franco's purposes ... a possession, something you can buy," said now ex-NYU acting teacher Jose Angel Satana. So, a movie star and former Oscar host perhaps inadvertently gets a professor fired from his prestigious university job? The only thing that can make this story better is the Taiwanese animation team! Better known as Next Media Animation, the group has gained popularity for their hilarious animated retelling of American news. In the Franco video, James gets a D from his professor, Angel Santana, who is then promptly chased off school property (just like it happened in real life -- maybe). There's also a reenactment of Franco's famous amputation scene from '127 Hours.' Make sure to keep a look out for the not-so-subtle 'Spider-Man' reference along with NY University scenery that looks nothing NY. [via Movieline] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

'The Dark Knight Rises' Trailer: Bane Will Let Batman Die When Gotham is Ashes

After some fits and starts thanks to a non-working link on Apple, the first full trailer for 'The Dark Knight Rises' has exploded online. Not literally, but kinda. As in: Bane keeps the fire rising by pressuring Batman and destroying an entire football field. If that scene looks a little too much like 'The Last Boy Scout' for your taste -- and it should -- don't worry: there are also shots of Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and the mysterious characters played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard and Matthew Modine. The only thing this slam-bam trailer doesn't really allude to? The fact that you cannot understand most of what Bane (Tom Hardy) says -- at least judging by the beautiful-looking-if-incomprehensible IMAX prologue that many saw in front of 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' over the weekend. Head over to Apple to watch the trailer in HD; Moviefone will post the embed when it becomes available. 'The Dark Knight Rises,' from director Christopher Nolan, arrives in theaters on July 20, 2012. UPDATE: Watch below! [via Apple] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

Charter taps Tom Rutledge as CEO

RutledgeTom Rutledge, who ankled Cablevision as chief operating officer late last week, has been named CEO of Charter Communications, the St. Louis-based cable company announced Monday.He joins Charter immediately and will become president and chief executive effective Feb. 13. He was also named to the board of directors. He will keep his home in NY and split his time between there and Charter's two hubs in St. Louis and Denver. Rutledge, 58, and considered one of the best cable executives in the business, had been chief operating officer of Cablevision, in Long Island, since 2004. The veteran exec previously worked at Time Warner Cable. He succeeds Michael Lovett, who announced in October plans to step down as Charter CEO by April of 2012 unless a replacement was found sooner. Lovett will stay on until February to help the transition. A rep for Charter, the nation's fourth-largest cable operator, said Rutledge wasn't commenting further on his move just yet, the first part of which was the abrupt departure from Cablevision that shocked Wall Street and industry insiders. Rutledge and Cablevision CEO James Dolan were said to be at odds although neither side gave any reason for his departure. Speculation started immediately, however, that he might be tapped for the open Charter job. Before Rutledge left, another highly regarded former Cablevision exec who resigned earlier this year, John Bickham, was said to be in pole position for the Charter CEO post.Charter said in an SEC filing Monday that Rutledge's four-year contract carries a base salary of $2 million with a target bonus of 175% of that and equity awards of 1.26 million shares of common stock. The news was announced after the market closed resulting in an abrupt reversal in Charter's share price. Shares slipped 3.26% during the day to close at $52.74, before jumping 3.25% in after-hours trading. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Brad Grey Inks New Contract to Remain Paramount Chairman

Last year, as Oprah Winfrey was attempting to set up lucrative carriage deals for her new TV network, she decided to negotiate personally with the executives at Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator.our editor recommendsGayle King Addresses Oprah Winfrey's Letter to Wendy Williams: Not RealOprah Winfrey Magazine, Website Struggle After End of Syndicated Talk ShowOprah Winfrey's Primetime Series to Launch on New Year's DayHollywood's Real Estate Deals of the Week: Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Willis, 'Twilight' Honeymoon House, Justin Bieber's Manager The Ceremony: Academy Honors Oprah Winfrey, James Earl Jones and Dick Smith in Emotional EveningOWN Shifting Attention to Its African-American ViewersOWN Expands Oprah Winfrey's 'Lifeclass'Oprah Winfrey's OWN Taps Susanne Daniels as a Consultant Winfrey traveled to the company's Philadelphia headquarters in the hope that a little Oprah magic would result in handsome fees for her joint venture with Discovery Communications. But according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting, Comcast executives not only rebuffed Winfrey but characterized her pitch as "greedy" for an unproven network. After that, Winfrey did not attend other such meetings. PHOTOS: Oprah Through the Years The rude awakening is indicative of Winfrey's struggle to turn OWN into the kind of powerhouse she presided over during her 25 years as the queen of daytime TV -- a struggle that has taken on a new sense of urgency as Winfrey returns to television with the launch of her weekly interview show Jan. 1, OWN's first anniversary. As losses mount, industry observers and some former insiders are starting to wonder how long Discovery or Winfrey will stay in the ambitious effort to make OWN fly. Today, major service providers including Comcast pay nothing for OWN, which is not unusual for a network with no ratings history. (Comcast declined comment.) But Discovery is going without those fees as it has poured $254 million into funding the venture (far above its initial $189 million commitment). And the network faces an increasing number of "make-goods" after negotiating rich pacts with such blue-chip advertisers as General Motors and Procter & Gamble, which agreed to a $100 million multiplatform sponsorship deal personally shepherded by Winfrey. With these pressures, analysts suggest Winfrey should cover at least some of the costs of running OWN. Right now, the venture pays 7 percent interest on the $254 million investment, and Discovery recoups its investment first with profits split 50-50. From the start, Winfrey's reach has seemed to exceed her grasp with OWN. She attempted to launch the network while still hosting her syndicated show. And unlike competitors, OWN tried to program without a lineup of reruns of established shows. "It's hard to start without an existing library," says a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation. "The idea that [OWN] had to create almost all original programming was kind of daunting." VIDEO: The 5 Best Clips From 'The Oprah Winfrey Show Winfrey also is said to have been unfamiliar with the general television landscape, according to sources with firsthand knowledge -- one insider says that in the early going, she often expressed enthusiasm for ideas that seemed original to her -- but weren't. "Oprah has a bubble she lives in," says another. "She's not a fan of a lot of TV." Multiple sources also describe Discovery Communications president and CEO David Zaslav as somewhat "starstruck" in his early dealings with Winfrey. These sources say Zaslav operated on the hope that Winfrey would be willing to appear on the network five days a week, even though she was "pretty firm from the outset" that she would not. "That claim is ludicrous," says Discovery spokesman David Leavy. "We are trying to build a business, a brand and a platform to nourish an audience and build value for the long-term. Any characterization beyond that is just ill-informed." One insider says Winfrey delayed signing her deal with Discovery in part because of ambivalence about the venture overall and escalating pressure to increase her role. Her pact was renegotiated in summer 2010, several months after she announced in November 2009 that she would end her daytime talk show. From the start, OWN has been beset with executive turnover. The most recent casualty was Discovery COO Peter Liguori, whose exit was announced Nov. 9. So far this year, OWN is averaging just 136,000 viewers per day (Monday through Sunday, 6 a.m.-6 a.m.), a decline of 8 percent compared to predecessor Discovery Health in 2010. Among women 18 to 49, OWN is down 12 percent. In primetime, OWN actually is up slightly among total viewers -- 2 percent, to 258,000 -- and is up 8 percent among women 25 to 54. But OWN is flat among younger women 18 to 49. PHOTOS: Hollywood's Top Earners If Discovery executives remain disappointed with OWN's ratings -- "below our expectations" is how Zaslav characterized them in May -- they say they remain committed to the network. "My job, Oprah's job, is to create a meaningful audience for OWN over the next two years," Zaslav said Dec. 7. Executives at Discovery stress that the network is looking at the long-term upside potential of OWN. "After 11 months, we're very pleased with where we are," says Leavy. "We remain extraordinarily enthusiastic about the venture and what the venture holds." So far, the top-rated OWN show has been The Judds, which averaged 724,000 viewers and wrapped its six-episode run in May. The No. 2 show is reruns of CBS' Undercover Boss (640,000 viewers). And while OWN is doing relatively well with the documentary series Our America With Lisa Ling (477,000 viewers) and docusoap Welcome to Sweetie Pie's (450,000 viewers), the much-hyped Rosie Show -- which marked the return of Rosie O'Donnell to the talk-show format -- has been a big disappointment, averaging only 244,000 viewers as of Dec. 4. The next test for Winfrey, 57, will come with the launch of Oprah's Next Chapter. The weekly interview show -- a promo features Winfrey in the New Hampshire woods with American Idol judge Steven Tyler -- will mark Winfrey's return to the format that made her famous, albeit in primetime and only once a week. The show will air Sunday at 9 p.m., a competitive time slot. But executives at OWN and Discovery are banking that a little Oprah will go a long way to shore up the network's disappointing fortunes. "A network's ratings can improve quite a bit with one oversized hit," says Eric Handler, an analyst at MKM Partners, adding that OWN was launched with "an unusually high cost structure for a cable network because Oprah was attached to it." STORY:OWN Shifting Attention to Its African-American Viewers On the positive side, SNL Kagan analyst Derek Baine predicts advertising revenue for OWN will hit around $56 million this year and more than $85 million next year, far better than Discovery Health's $15.1 million in 2010. But he expects affiliate revenue to be cut in half, from $62 million in 2010 to less than $30 million in 2012 as Discovery attempts to lure more carriers by giving the channel away. Further, he says programming expenses are likely to balloon from $29 million last year to $135 million this year and more than $155 million next year. What this means for OWN's overall financial picture is murky because Discovery is an equity investor and therefore doesn't fully consolidate its results in financial reports. Thus wildly divergent predictions: Baine estimates that cash flow will swing from $28.8 million in 2010 to a negative $55.6 million this year and a $67 million loss in 2012. Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce expects Discovery to report a loss of $17 million for its equity stake in OWN for 2011, which will reverse to a positive $26 million next year and positive operating cash flow of $81 million by 2016. Observers agree that an increased sense of urgency has surrounded OWN in recent weeks, as insiders wonder whether the company can increase carriage fees, and how much it will need to invest to do so. TV distributors would not comment on when their current carriage agreements with Discovery and OWN expire. With major service providers paying nothing for the network now, the hope is that by 2013 these providers would agree to pay 20 cents per sub, a hefty increase from the 7 cents Discovery Health was getting from some, if not all, carriers. Sources say some smaller operators, including Charter and Cox, have agreed to those terms. [OWN did sign up Cablevision -- which has more than three million subscribers in the NY City area -- in December 2010.] But OWN has so far been unable to turn major operators. SNL Kagan estimates that at least for those who are paying, average monthly carriage fees per subscriber for OWN dropped to 5 cents this year and will go to 3 cents in 2012 as OWN offers the network to providers for free. STORY:Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Website Struggle After End of Syndicated Talk Show Some believe requiring Winfrey to pony up more money is the smart move. "Discovery has deep pockets but not bottomless," says Handler. "I think getting Oprah to match Discovery dollar for dollar on new capital would be a great idea, and it would show investors that she remains serious about the long-term success of the network." Winfrey has said that she "lets other people worry about ratings." But the ratings -- and everything else about the network -- have become a big problem, leaving many industry observers wondering whether Discovery or Winfrey will have the stomach to continue the struggle. "If I were her, I'd pack my bags," says an OWN insider. "What does she need this for? Running a network is 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Anything short of that, forget about it." Georg Szalai contributed to this report. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery The 5 Best Clips From 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' Related Topics Oprah Winfrey

William Morris Headquarters Offered for $47.8 Million (Exclusive)

Jesse Trump introduced that he's backing from moderating a Republican debate in Iowa on 12 ,. 27.our editor recommendsDonald Trump Scolds Bachmann Wanted as Debate Implodes, Teases Go back to Presidential RaceDonald Trump's GOP Debate: Ron Perry Becomes 4th Candidate Who Will not Participate Why? Since the billionaire states he might still run. "It is crucial in my experience the right Republican candidate be selected to defeat the unsuccessful and incredibly destructive Federal Government, but when that Republican, for me, isn't the right candidate, I'm not willing to stop my to run being an Independent candidate," Trump stated in the statement. "Therefore, to ensure that there's no conflict of great interest inside the Republican Party, I've made the decision to not function as the moderator from the Newsmax debate." PHOTOS: 10 Hollywood Gamers Which Will Really make a difference within the 2012 Elections Newt Gingrich and Ron Santorum were the only real Republican candidates who had decided to appear in the 12 ,. 27 debate moderated by Trump. Following the announcement came that Trump could be moderating the 12 ,. 27, a few of the candidates, including Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, expressed their belief the debate only agreed to be for spectacle and declined to go to. "This isn't about rankings for Jesse Trump this really is about jobs for that United states citizens,Inch Huntsman told CNBC when he introduced he'd not participate. Several prominent Republicans have apparently advised candidates to skip the big event. They predicted it might be a media circus along with a distraction from important issues. PHOTOS: The Films and Stars Dems versus. GOPers Love (and Like to Hate) On Tuesday morning, The Hollywood Reporter spoken with Trump, who accepted he was wavering on his decision to moderate the controversy. "The issue is the Republicans are scared when I run being an independent candidate, they don't wish to have a debate after which have me announce which i'm running being an independent candidate," Trump told THR. Trump also told THR that he's still thinking about a run for leader being an independent candidate. He told THR he wouldn't make any bulletins until following the finale from the Celebrity Apprentice. The brand new season premeires on Sunday, February. 12 and also the finale airs May 20. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery Box Office Politics: The Films and Stars Dems versus. GOPers Love (and Like to Hate) Related Subjects Jesse Trump Politics

Adele Usually Takes two or three Years Before Next Album

First Launched: December 10, 2011 12:29 PM EST Credit: Getty Images La, Calif. -- Caption Adele holds her award within the Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize 2011 within the Grosvenor House, London, Sept. 6, 2011Nominated for six Grammy honours and recently named Ads Artist of year, Adele has centered the 2011 charts along with her second album, 21. However, after fighting a throat condition that needed surgery, times of vocal relaxation and postponing numerous concerts, the British giant states the key task on her behalf account current to-do list is relaxation. Im really searching toward some time to accomplish nothing, the 23-year-old told Billboard magazine inside an interview for December 17 problem. And, in news that may make many Adele fans cringe, the star states she may not launched audio for two to three years. I imagine Ill be 25 or 26 when my next record arrives, after i havent even considered my third record yet, she told the mag. Im just gonna lay some concrete, setup home and basically be for any little. Ill disappear and return getting an archive when its sufficient. There will not be any audio until its sufficient and until Im ready. On her health, the You singer states shes recovering nicely and expecting achievement from her recent surgery. The surgery couldnt go better but because I used to be singing with damaged vocal guitar guitar chords for three or four several days and because of the surgery and because of the silence following a surgery, I will have to create myself support vocally, she revealed. Its likely to be a good deal simpler will be able to sing now. And psychologically I wont be worried about my voice on stage any more. And So I must become accustomed to that. Thatll take a lot of the month of the month of january, so February Ill be singing properly! she added. Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Corporation. All rights reserved. These elements is probably not launched, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Lifetime cancels 'Against the Wall'

Lifetime has canceled first-year drama series "From the Wall." With only one.six million audiences tuning in weekly for that 13-episode run, the femme-skewing cabler thought the show did not have a future moving forward. Skein, from creator Annie Brunner and Universal Cable Prods., starred Rachael Carpani like a Chicago cop who joins the department's internal matters division. Co-stars incorporated Treat Williams, Kathy Baker and Andrew Master. "From the Wall" came only one.8 million because of its premiere episode This summer 31, with "Drop Dead Divas" like a lead-in. Lifetime, underneath the helm of Nancy Dubuc, has purchased a number of aircraft pilots lately, such as the Renee Zellweger-created "Cinnamon Girl," Eric Stoltz and Ally Sheedy in "Modern Love," and Neve Campbell in "Sworn to Silence," that will run like a telepic. Also arriving 2012 may be the Jennifer Love Hewitt starrer "The Customer List," looking for a ten-episode order. Contact Stuart Levine at stuart.levine@variety.com