Several films that were included in this week's announcement of Oscar nominations will be returning to the big screen this weekend, including some that have already been released on home video. Other films will see an increase in the number of theaters showing them. Mystic River, which was showing in only 200 theaters two weeks ago, will be expanded into 1,361 this weekend following its nomination for best picture, director, actor, supporting actor and supporting actress. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which received 10 nominations, will expand from 235 locations to 1,007. City of God, with four nominations, expands from four theaters to about 150. Monster, which won a best actress nomination for Charlize Theron, will go from 300 theaters to 650. Seabiscuit, already out on home video, will return to 54 theaters. Whale Rider, which won another best actress nod for 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes will reopen in Los Angeles and possibly New York, although it, too, is out on home video. Nevertheless, distributors are not optimistic that the films will be big draws. As Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman told today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times: "For the first time, the nominations will be followed by Super Bowl Sunday, a notoriously bad day for box office."

Warner Bros. and Sony's Columbia Pictures have each sued Carmine Caridi, a member of the motion picture academy, and his friend, Russell Sprague, who have been accused of posting academy screeners of The Last Samurai and Mystic River (from Warner's) and Something's Gotta Give and Big Fish (from Columbia) on the Internet. Sprague, who was arrested in Chicago on a federal warrant last week and ordered to stand trial in Los Angeles, maintains that he has no idea how the films wound up on the Internet. Caridi, who had originally received the screeners and has admitted lending them to Sprague, is said to be cooperating with investigators.

In an apparent attempt to dispel widespread speculation about how his Alexander the Great film will approach the issue of homosexuality, Colin Farrell, who appears in the title role, has told a gay-oriented website in the U.K. that the film will not dwell on the character's sexuality. Interviewed by the website Gay.com , Farrell said, "There may be details of Alexander's sexuality in the film but [director Oliver Stone] wanted to portray the figure accurately and didn't want to ignore facts surrounding his sexual antics." He went on to suggest that homosexual conduct was commonplace in Macedonian culture, adding: "It's not a gay film, it's not a straight film ... it's just a f***ing story!"

An appeals court has knocked down Sony Films' efforts to block a class-action suit over the company's advertisements for A Knight's Tale, which contained comments praising the film from a bogus reviewer. (The reviewer, "David Manning," who described the film's leading man, Heath Ledger, as "this year's hottest new star," was exposed as the invention of a Sony marketing executive, assigned to put a positive spin on poorly reviewed films.) Sony had sought to block the suit on grounds of protected speech, but Judge Robert Mallano wrote in his majority decision that if Sony's position were upheld, "all sorts of mischief" might ensue. "For example," he said, "a film could be advertised as having garnered 'Three Golden Globe Nominations' when it had received none."

Time Warner may have been able to boast Wednesday that it had reversed a year-ago loss and had earned $638 million in the fourth quarter -- giving the company its first annual profit since the merger with AOL in 2000 -- but investors took note that such profits could be fleeting given the fact that a single movie -- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King -- accounted for a good part of the figure and that the company's cable business and its America Online Internet service had both recorded subscriber losses. In heavy trading, the company's stock fell 96 cents to $17.96. (The stock continued to fall in early trading today.)

The success of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is being credited for boosting the fiscal condition of AMC Entertainment, the country's second-largest movie chain. In an FCC filing, the company said that its third-quarter earnings rose to $11.7 million from $1.33 million in the comparable quarter a year ago. AMC particularly cited the Rings movie for its good fortune as well as other big draws, an increase in ticket prices, and a third quarter in 2003 that included seven more days than the previous year's.

BBC Director-General Greg Dyke resigned today (Thursday), becoming the second high-ranking official of the publicly funded broadcasting corporation to fall on his sword following Wednesday's release of findings by Lord Hutton, accusing the BBC of lax editorial supervision and careless management. The British law lord had conducted hearings into the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly, who had been identified as the source of a BBC report alleging that the Tony Blair government had "sexed up" an intelligence report dealing with weapons of mass destruction in order to make the case for war against Iraq. Lord Hutton's judgment on the matter, officially released on Wednesday (but leaked a day earlier) found the BBC's report "unfounded" and the broadcaster's oversight "defective." Dyke's departure under such circumstances was particularly ironic inasmuch as his arrival at the BBC was accompanied by considerable controversy over the fact that he had donated some $100,000 to Blair's Labor Party. Speaking to reporters today, Dyke said: "I think the BBC is an incredibly important organization in this country and this has been unpleasant time. I think my going is important in preserving the BBC's independence. ... The preservation of the BBC is irrelevant unless we have the trust of the public." Dyke further apologized for the controversial broadcast, saying: "The BBC does accept that certain key allegations ... were wrong and we apologize for them." The BBC later announced that it had appointed Mark Byford, the company's number-two man, as its acting director-general.

Fox's American Idol remains a steamroller, garnering an 11.8 rating and a 17 share on Tuesday and an 18.2/26 on Wednesday in the 8:00 p.m. time period. The results gave Fox an easy win on both nights. In fact, on Wednesday night ratings of Idol among the 18-49-year-old demo was 16 percent higher than the ratings for the programs broadcast by the five other competing networks combined.

CBS reiterated its stand on "advocacy advertising" Wednesday after reportedly being deluged with complaints about its refusal to air an ad from the liberal organization MoveOn.org during the Super Bowl criticizing the Bush administration's spending policies. In addition, some two dozen Congressional Democrats also criticized the network's decision. In a statement, CBS said, "The policy is decades old. It is designed to prevent those with means to produce and purchase network advertising from having undue influence on 'controversial issues of public importance.'" Responding to complaints that it had accepted anti-drug and -smoking ads, the network said it "is unaware of responsible groups that advocate drug abuse and smoking by minors, so it is hard to understand how these laudable efforts would constitute 'controversial issues.'" Nevertheless, critics pointed out that an ad purchased by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy that suggested that casual drug use supported international terrorism stirred up considerable controversy when it aired on CBS in 2002.

Dennis Miller's debut talk show on CNBC has clobbered Deborah Norville's new show on sister cable network MSNBC, according to ratings figures released Wednesday by Nielsen Research. According to the figures, Miller attracted 746,000 viewers versus 307,000 for Norville. Miller's audience was four times larger than the network's usual one for the 9:00 p.m. time period. Nevertheless, Fox's Bill O'Reilly continued to lead in the hour with 1.7 million viewers, followed by CNN's Larry King with 1.3 million.

The forever-digging operators of The Smoking Gun website have signed a deal with NBC News to appear on NBC news and magazine programs to discuss their investigations, the network announced Wednesday. In a statement, NBC said that William Bastone and Daniel Green, who founded the website -- and later sold it to Court TV -- would make periodic appearances on the Today show and Dateline to discuss their stories. NBC News president Neal Shapiro said in a statement, "As we head into what will be a year of high-profile trials and a constantly evolving political landscape, to have the investigative resources of the Smoking Gun to bolster our own gives us an incomparable edge."

San Francisco television station KRON, owned by Young Broadcasting, has been fined $27,500, the maximum permitted by law, for broadcasting a live news feature in which a man's genitalia flashed on the screen for about a second. The incident occurred during a live report about the theatrical show Puppetry of the Penis, in which performers stand behind a screen and, in silhouette, manipulate their genitals into various shapes. During the demonstration, a camera panned from the screen, catching Puppetry member David Friend live. Although the station claimed that what occurred was unintentional, the FCC held that the station was aware that it was necessary for the performers to appear nude and that the possibility that one of them might be caught live on camera "was clearly foreseeable." It was only the second time in history that the commission has fined a TV station for indecency.