Johnny Depp, who was once relegated to relatively low budget films because producers thought him too outré to attract sizable audiences, was named Top Money Making Star for the second year in a row in the 76th annual Quickley Publishing Co. poll. Depp starred in 2007 in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The poll. which surveys motion picture exhibitors, put Will Smith (I Am Legend) in second place. Other top finishers: 3: George Clooney (Ocean's Thirteen, Michael Clayton); 4. Matt Damon (Ocean's Thirteen, The Bourne Ultimatum); 5. Denzel Washington (American Gangster, The Great Debaters).

The top-selling DVD over Christmas week was The Simpsons Movie, which held the top spot for the second week in a row, according to Nielsen VideoScan. Rush Hour 3 debuted at No. 2, while The Kingdom entered the field at No. 3. On the rental charts, Rush Hour 3 debuted in first place with $11.9 million, according to Home Media magazine. The Kingdom was close behind with $11.2 million. The Simpsons Movie slipped to third place in its second week with $10.6 million.

WGA negotiators have branded as a hoax a report that some A-list screenwriters are banding together to urge the guild to accept the contract provisions of any deal to be negotiated between the Directors Guild and the studios. The report appeared Wednesday on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Today blog. However, on the WGA's WriterAction message board Thursday, John Auerbach, a member of the writers' negotiating committee, quoted a fellow negotiator as saying that Finke's report "was based on a prank played by a writer." Auerbach said that a member of the Writers Guild of America West board contacted Finke to inform her that she was the victim of a prankster. "Bottom line," wrote Auerbach, Finke's report was "utter bulls**t." Finke says that she stands by her reporting.

After already causing an uproar at the Berlin Film Festival for being screened without first being submitted to Chinese censors, the movie Lost in Beijing has been ordered withdrawn from further exhibition in China. Citing the film's "pornographic" content and the fact that it was shown at the Berlinale without state permission, Chinese officials also said that the film's producer will be barred from making films for two years. Although the erotic scenes were heavily edited for its theatrical showing in China, bootleg copies of the uncut version were widely distributed throughout the country and on the Internet. The filmmakers themselves were accused of being the source of the pirated material. Producer Li Fang denied the charge, telling the Associated Press: "Why would I give the movie to pirates and hurt my own movie? ... We are victims of piracy. We are the biggest victims."

Only one new film is scheduled to open wide this weekend, the Warner Bros. thriller One Missed Call. It was not screened for critics.

On the same day that Writers Guild of America West President Patric Verrone told the New York Times that he had "made it absolutely clear" to Jay Leno that writing for The Tonight Show constitutes a violation of the guild's strike rules, Leno once again delivered a self-written monologue on Thursday night's show. Meanwhile, L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke disclosed on her Deadline Hollywood Today blog that a meeting between Leno and Verrone took place on Dec. 31, in which Leno expressed concerns about being depicted as "the bad guy" for returning to work during the strike without his writers. However, a spokesman for the WGA told Finke that at the close of the meeting, Leno said, "OK, I'm going to do the show, and I'm going to do my monologue" and that Verrone raised no objection. The spokesman, who attended the meeting, added, "I don't believe I heard Jay saying he was 'writing' his monologue. I thought I heard him say he was 'doing' his monologue." However, one of Leno's writers who attended the meeting backed Leno, telling the New York Times: "Jay said, 'Let me get this clear: I'm allowed to write my monologue.' ... There was no way Jay could have misinterpreted what was being said." Meanwhile, overnight ratings for Wednesday night's show put Leno well ahead of Letterman, with Leno scoring a 5.3 rating and a 12 share (7.2 million viewers) and Letterman, a 4.3/10 (5.5 million). The audience for each of the talk-show hosts was up considerably over their season average. Also, Conan O'Brien, who did indeed appear to ad lib his way through his show, attracted 2.84 million viewers, his best numbers in more than a year.

In an embarrassing turn of events for the Writers Guild of America, employees of the East Coast branch, who are represented by the Newspaper Guild, are planning to go on strike, claiming that the WGA East has attempted to modify a contract that was ratified by members last October. "It's like a car salesman demanding that you sign a contract after he's changed all the numbers you had agreed upon," Newspaper Guild President Bill O'Meara told the New York Post. A Writers Guild spokesperson said that the dispute has been submitted to the National Labor Relations Board for resolution.

Nielsen Research got around to releasing ratings for Christmas week Thursday, and no network had much to boast about. CBS dominated the week with six of the top-ten shows, but its average 5.3 rating and 10 share was well off its season average of 7.4/12. NBC took the remaining top-ten slots, averaging a 5.1/9 for the week. Fox placed third with an average 3.6/7, while ABC trailed with a 3.3/6.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. NBC Sunday Night Football (Tennessee Titans vs. the Indianapolis Colts), NBC, 9.7/16; 2. NFL Saturday Night Special (New England Patriots vs. the New York Giants), CBS, 8.7/15; 3. 60 Minutes, CBS, 7.7/13; 3. NFL Special 12/29(S), NBC, 7.7/13; 5. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 7.0/12; 6. Without a Trace, CBS, 6.9/12; 7. Sunday Night NFL Pre-kickoff, NBC, 6.3/11; 8. CSI: NY, CBS, 6.0/10; 9. Amazing Race 12, CBS, 5.9/9; 9. Criminal Minds, CBS, 5.9/10; 9. Law and Order: SVU, NBC, 5.9/11.

News Corp's Fox Business Channel has been averaging only 6,300 viewers per day, according to figures from Nielsen research and published in today's (Friday) New York Times. By contrast, the cable network's chief rival, CNBC, averages 283,000 viewers per day. (Nielsen said that the figures for Fox were too low to reveal; the Times obtained them from sources at Fox and CNBC.)

CBS News, which set up the website Public Eye in 2005 "to bring transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News," is shutting the site down, according to the TVNewser website. There have been no new postings on the site since shortly after editor Matthew Felling was abruptly let go last month. A spokesperson for CBS Interactive told TVNewser, "We weren't able to find a sustainable business model for Public Eye. We are exploring ways to maintain a similar spirit of public discourse by engaging the CBSNews.com audience and building a community around multiple voices." Kevin Roderick, who oversees the L.A. Observed website, commented, "It's sad to see a project begun with such excitement (and such a budget, oy -- there were THREE editors at one time!) come to such a quiet and unlamented end, without even time for a whimper."