Critics for the most part are not feeling the least bit congenial about Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, starring Sandra Bullock. Manohla Dargis in the Los Angeles Times dismisses it as a "junky sequel" to the 2000 original. "It isn't just that Miss Congeniality 2 is nearly absent a single genuine laugh; it's that instead of a screenplay and a story we now have stereotypes and sketch comedy," she writes. Eric Harrison in the Houston Chronicle is kinder but appears to go out of his way to avoid using the term "cheesy" to describe the film, writing instead: "In the end, it's pointless to think too much about this pasteurized tub of cinematic Velveeta. It was made and processed to go down easy, which it does. It isn't a subtle French Camembert, but then it doesn't pretend to be." Bullock herself gets fine notices in most of the reviews, and critics, by and large, go out out of their way not to assign blame for its failings to her. Comments Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal: "Miss Congeniality 2 isn't a total waste of your time; Bullock sees to that. But it is a waste of the star's time." And Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post observes: "More than any other actress, she appears to have an unlimited supply of audience goodwill, even as she makes lesser pictures."

Michael Eisner appeared prepared to hand over the reins of the Walt Disney Co. to Robert Iger earlier than anticipated, according to those who attended a media analysts' meeting in New York on Tuesday and reported by several publication today (Thursday). Eisner, who has six months remaining on his contract as Disney CEO, told the group that the "transition has already taken place" and he currently regards himself as the "junior partner" to Iger. For his part, Iger appeared to suggest that he might be able to overcome the "personality issues" that prevented a deal from being worked out between Eisner and Pixar Chairman Steve Jobs. According to one attendee cited by Daily Variety, Iger remarked. "I think I owe it to the company to explore a deal [with Jobs], but I will be managing for the bottom line -- not the headline." Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen later wrote in a report to clients that the session represented "a passing of the torch of sorts."

Thanks in large part to record overseas ticket sales of $221 million, Meet the Fockers, starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Barbra Streisand, has become the most successful live-action comedy in history, grossing $498 million overall, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Thursday). The newspaper observed that the take was particularly remarkable given Hollywood's long-standing axiom that "comedies don't travel overseas, except those of the animated variety."

Time Warner has effectively closed the curtains on Fine Line Films and opened new ones on an as-yet-unnamed indie company to be headed by Newmarket Films President Bob Berney. The media giant's subsidiaries, New Line Cinema and HBO, not only signed Berney to head the new indie division but also acquired Newmarket's theatrical distribution unit, which will now distribute films produced by New Line and HBO. Newmarket co-founders William Tyrer and Chris Ball will keep the Newmarket name, library and film finance division.

Additional scenes are being attached to a "director's cut" DVD of the 2002 XXX that will serve as a bridge to the sequel, XXX: State of the Union, which is due to be released theatrically on April 29. The scenes, presented as a four minute short on the DVD, will depict the death of Xander Cage, the lead character, played by Vin Diesel in the original film. (He's played by Khristian Lupo on the DVD.) Director Rob Cohen observed that while the new movie will refer to Cage's death, the DVD will show how it occurred. "It's pretty graphic," Cohen told Home Media Retailing magazine. He added: "It occurred to me that if we're going to do an extended director's cut, there better be something really worth buying in it, because I don't want the audience that was attracted to my film to feel like they're being ripped off."

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, whose last four films for Disney -- The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002) and The Village (2004)-- grossed $2.3 billion worldwide in theatrical and video sales, has bolted the company for Warner Bros., according to trade reports. "Creative differences" over his latest film project, Lady in the Water, led to his decision, the reports said.

Figuring that Good Friday is a holiday for millions of people, Warner Bros. has decided to open its Sandra Bullock comedy Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous on a Thursday, an unusual day for a theatrical release. The original film, which opened over the Christmas holiday in 2000, took in only $13 million during its initial four-day weekend, but went on to gross $106 million domestically. The new film is expected to earn twice that amount at least and probably unseat The Ring Two from the top of the box office.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has called for a boycott of Deadly, a film about the sex slayings of two teenagers in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, in 1993. The film is scheduled to be released in July. In an interview Wednesday with CanWest News Service, McGuinty charged that the movie, about killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, was an effort "to capitalize on a terrible and horrific tragedy" involving the murders of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffey and 15-year-old Kirsten French. "I don't think that legally we can prevent that movie from being shown in Ontario," Mr. McGuinty said. "I certainly will not be viewing that movie and I guess my advice, and my encouragement to Ontarians, is that they would do the same." Jim Watson, the province's consumer minister, asked Canadian distributors to "shun this film and not try to make a quick buck out of a very disturbing part of our history. We have to think of the families of these two young women who were killed." Film producer Michael Sellers reportedly has agreed to allow lawyers for the families of the victims to view the film. In a statement on the film's website, Sellers said that he had vowed "to do nothing to dishonor the memory of the victims."

American Idol executive producer Ken Warwick moved promptly Wednesday to counter speculation that the show had deliberately created a voting snafu to garner ratings. (On its home page, America Online asked its subscribers Wednesday to comment on whether they believed it was all a publicity stunt.) Speaking to reporters during a telephone conference Wednesday, Warwick asked, "Why would we contaminate the honesty of one of the top-rated shows in America by fiddling with it?" He called the snafu "regrettable." The producers decided to rebroadcast the contestants' performances Wednesday night and present the voting results during a half-hour special at 9:00 p.m. tonight (Thursday). Wednesday's show failed to produce the kind of premium ratings that Fox has been used to getting for Idol, but the 12.2 rating and 18 share were still good enough to win the 9:00 p.m. hour, beating a rerun of CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (10.0/15), NBC's The West Wing (6.0/9), and ABC's Alias (4.5/7).

ABC has halted production of its reality show Wife Swap after members of the crew noticed injuries on the face of the 13-year-old daughter of one of the contestants, Yanni Panagiotakis, and learned from the girl that Panagiotakis had hit her several times for not wearing a coat. Nashville police were notified and arrested Panagiotakis on charges of domestic assault. "First and foremost, the well-being of all of the participants in Wife Swap is a top priority," ABC said in a statement as it cancelled filming.

FX Networks president and CEO Peter Liguori has emerged as the front runner to succeed Gail Berman as entertainment president of Fox Broadcasting, published reports indicated today (Thursday). Today's (Thursday) Hollywood Reporter disclosed that Liguori has already been offered the job and discussed the offer with his top staffers on Wednesday. Neither Liguori nor Berman would discuss the matter with reporters. News reports said that Berman is expected to remain at the network for a transition period of several weeks.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Wednesday released a number of inexpensive "starter packs," featuring two episodes of 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Pretender, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Included in the DVDs, which are being priced at $5 - $7, is a $10 coupon that can be applied to the purchase of a full-season set. In an interview with Home Media Retailing magazine, Fox marketing chief Todd Rowan said, "The idea is to create a low price point single-disc trial mechanism for fans of the show who maybe haven't stepped up to purchase a full-season set yet."

Nielsen Media Research, which had continued to maintain that its new "local people meter" system does not discriminate against minorities, as some minority leaders have claimed, appeared to reverse itself Wednesday after an independent task force concluded that it was undercounting minority viewers. The panel 's 62-page report included recommendations to improve the racial composition of Nielsen samples in local areas.

Three years after Louis Rukeyser, the original host of PBS's long-running Wall Street Week, was fired, the show itself is going off the air, having failed to attract a bigger and younger audience with a revamp as its producers had hoped, the New York Times reported today (Thursday), citing no sources. The newspaper said that Maryland Public Television, which produces the program -- and which parted company with Rukeyser -- plans to announce today (Thursday) that the final program will air on June 24. Rukeyser moved to CNBC after his ouster and continued his program on the cable network until he was diagnosed with cancer last year.

The recipient of a First Amendment Leadership Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association has acknowledged that he was compelled to order several stations not to air Saving Private Ryan last November. As reported by New York's Village Voice, Liberty Corporation President Jim Keelor told the RTNDA: "It's somewhat ironic that about the time I found out about this award, I was in the process of making a decision which ignored the First Amendment." Keelor said that he had ordered the ABC stations, all of them located in the South and Midwest, not to air the film "because the FCC refused to issue a definitive statement that the rebroadcast was content-acceptable." The agency had earlier overruled a conclusion by its staff that the use of a variation of the F-word by Bono during a live broadcast of the Golden Globes Awards was not indecent, saying the earlier decision "is no longer good law. By our action today, broadcasters are on clear notice that, in the future, they will be subject to potential enforcement action for any broadcast of the 'F-word or a variation thereof in situations such as that here." (There are 21 uses of the expletive in Ryan; last month, the FCC ruled that the film was not indecent.) Keelor, a former broadcast journalist whose stations have been recognized for their news coverage, also said that as a result of the FCC decision, "We changed the way we do live shots" in newscasts. Commenting on his remarks, the Village Voice asked, "Anyone feel a chill?"