NEW YORK - Jann Wenner, the publishing maverick who launched Rolling Stone in 1967, has finally found a partner in his effort to make US Weekly a mainstay in the celebrity journalism business: The Walt Disney Co.
Under a deal announced Tuesday, US Weekly is being spun off from Wenner’s media group, which also includes Men’s Journal and Rolling Stone, into a new company of which Disney will own half. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Wenner will retain editorial control of US Weekly, but Disney will use the material from the magazine as well as appearances by its writers in creating US Weekly-branded segments to appear on shows broadcast by the ABC network, which Disney also owns.
Disney plans to use the segments on “Good Morning America,” “The View,” ABC radio, ABC-owned local television stations and SoapNet, a cable channel with news about soap operas. It’s not yet clear how often the segments will appear or what form they’ll take.
Coppola to show new version of ‘Apocalypse Now’
PARIS - Director Francis Ford Coppola will screen a longer version of “Apocalypse Now” at the Cannes Film Festival in May, treating festivalgoers to an extra 53 minutes of his epic Vietnam movie and to scenes never previously seen.
Festival organizers said in a statement this week that Coppola, who won a Palme d’Or for the film when he brought it to Cannes in 1979, would attend the screening on the famous Croisette boardwalk.
“When ‘Apocalypse Now’ was shown on the Croisette, it was barely finished. The reception it received from the public and the jury is still a wonderful memory,” Coppola said in the statement.
The director decided to produce the definitive version early last year with Walter Murch, one of the original editors.
“The result is a film that is longer by 53 minutes, whose general theme is clearer, a film that is more worrying, sometimes more amusing, more romantic, too, and whose historic perspective has become even stronger,” Coppola said.
This year’s Cannes festival runs from May 9-20. A date has not yet been set for the “Apocalypse Now” screening.
