Marking one of the biggest movie-financing deals in Hollywood history, Relativity Capital has agreed to put up more than $1 billion to finance at least 75 percent of Universal Pictures films through 2011, published reports said today (Thursday). Daily Variety said that the deal would "funnel billions into the studio's slate." The Los Angeles Times observed that the deal, which is expected to cover about 45 films, will allow Universal to shift its focus away from financing movies to marketing and distributing them. "We always look to manage risk and volatility," Universal executive VP Michael Joe told the Times. "A deal like this allows us to do that while keeping distribution rights to the movies worldwide."

The casting director for a horror movie being shot in West Virginia has been fired after putting out a call for extras with facial features that would make them look "inbred." Casting director Donna M. Belajac was dismissed after Gov. Joe Manchin released a statement describing the casting call as "offensive." He added that he thought that the movie, a horror flick titled Shelter, produced by Nala Films of Los Angeles, "does not sound like a movie worth watching." Producers Emilio Diez Barroso and Darlene Caamano apologized "for the very insensitive casting call sent out without our knowledge." The incident also drew the attention of West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, who released a statement saying, "Unfortunately, some in the filmmaking industry have decided that perpetuating stereotypes and insulting generations of West Virginians means cash at the box office."

Redbox, which already has 6,800 DVD-rental kiosks installed in the U.S., plans to increase that figure by more than 25 percent when it installs an additional 1600 at Walgreens stores throughout the country. Redbox says that it expects to have 11,000 kiosks in operation by the end of the year. It is expanding at the same time as -- and probably because of -- the closures of hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores owned by Blockbuster, the largest video-store chain, and Movie Gallery, the second largest. The company is jointly owned by McDonald's and Coinstar.

Blockbuster's recent decision to raise prices rebounded to the benefit of Netflix, the online renter said Wednesday. The company said that it expects to report subscriber growth to 8.26 million from its earlier forecast of 8.05 million. Netflix also said that Blockbuster's price increase resulted in Netflix's existing subscribers spending more. The victory of Blu-ray over HD DVD in the high-definition format war will also allow Netflix to increase its inventory of Blu-ray titles, the company said, noting that it expects to add as many as 1,500 Blu-ray movies to the current 400.

American Gangster shot its way to the top of the DVD sales and rental charts last week, selling some 4 million copies and taking in $9.7 million in rentals, according to data compiled by Nielsen VideoScan First Alert and Home Media magazine. Coming in second with about 1.2 million copies sold was Michael Clayton, the Oscar nominee for best picture. It took in $8.2 million in rentals.

Toshiba may have thrown in the towel in its battle with Sony over high-definition players, halting production of its own HD DVD units and leaving Sony's Blu-ray as the de facto standard. Nevertheless, Toshiba apparently has not yet let DreamWorks Animation out of its exclusive deal to produce HD DVD titles only. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the studio's CEO, told Reuters that Bee Movie, the studio's next home video release, will be issued only on HD DVD unless Toshiba releases DreamWorks Animation from its current contract. "It's really in their court at this point to really declare what the next step will be," Katzenberg told the wire service. He pointed out that his studio had been "well compensated" by Toshiba for agreeing to release its films in high definition exclusively in the HD DVD format.

NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker said Wednesday that his company's revenue from the Internet and new media represented "digital pennies" and that NBC was still experimenting with ways to alter the economics of online distribution. Speaking to Harvard Business School on Wednesday, he suggested that it may be five years before a "fully formed" revenue model is created. Zucker expressed frustration over his dealings with Apple, which refused to go along with his demands to offer "flexible" pricing for downloads at its iTunes Store. The disagreement led to a parting-of-the-ways, and Zucker conceded that NBC's new partnerships have not been as successful as the earlier one with Apple in attracting customers. Nevertheless, he maintained that Hulu, NBC's joint venture with Fox, had become an "overwhelming" success with advertisers and was performing "far greater than we expected." On other subjects, he expressed hope that Jay Leno "will stay with us" after he is replaced by Conan O'Brien on The Tonight Show next year. He said that he expects to have "conversations" with Leno about a new show. "There's still a lot of time," he said. Zucker also took note of the fact that MSNBC drew its largest audience in history -- 7.8 million viewers -- for Tuesday's Ohio debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "I think they have found their identity," Zucker said. "I think politics really is their calling card."

In what today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times described as a return to "its short-form roots," the Walt Disney Co. is expected to unveil a comedy series composed of 10 3-5-minute-long episodes about window-washer slackers. The series, sponsored by Toyota, will be available on the ABC.com website and YouTube. It is being produced by the Disney unit Stage 9 Digital Media. In an interview with the Times, Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, said, "We've all seen the appeal of short-form content grow over the past few years. ... The launch of this experimental new media studio allows us to play in this space with some quality content, while giving us an interesting venue for telling stories in a different form."

Once again it was all American Idol Wednesday night as the talent contest drew more viewers than all the other networks combined during the 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. time period. The show averaged a 16.2 rating and a 25 share (27.36 million viewers), peaking in the final half-hour with a 17.5/26 (29.57 million viewers) -- not far off the ratings for last Sunday's Oscars telecast.

Big Brother contestant Adam Jasinski, who created an uproar when he referred to autistic children as "retards," has been fired by the United Autism Foundation. When another contestant on the show objected to his use of the term, Jasinski responded, "I can call them whatever I want, okay? I work with them all day." However, the foundation has posted a message on its website saying, "Mr. Jasinski will no longer work for or represent the United Autism Foundation since he caused tremendous damage to UNIAF." Last week, the Lowe's department store chain pulled its ads off Big Brother because of Jasinski's remarks. Jasinski himself has presumably not been informed about the controversy that his remarks touched off, since he remains cut off from the outside world within the Big Brother house.

As part of an effort to promote the revamped CBS soap opera Guiding Light, actors on the show, which has been produced in New York since 1952, rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning. Beginning Friday, the New York Times reported, the show will unveil a "new visual style" -- substituting cameras mounted on pedestals with smaller hand-held cameras. It will also be using 40 permanent sets, up from the current 8, with 20 percent of the scenes shot on location in New Jersey. In a statement, CBS said that the changes are intended to "bring a modern, more realistic look to the show, allowing viewers to be entertained by the stories and characters they love in a more intimate way." The show is the longest-running drama in TV history, but its audience has fallen from 4.8 million in 1998 to 2.6 million today.

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather has accused those he called "corporate overlords" at CBS of "working in secret collusion with the powers in Washington" to intrude into television newsrooms. Rather made the remarks as he returned to a courtroom in New York to demand that CBS release documents by a private investigator hired by the network to look into claims made in Rather's story about George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service. The story led to Rather's dismissal from the anchor's post and eventually from the network. CBS has claimed that the same documents will reinforce its own position and will be made public if and when Rather's lawsuit goes to trial.

Conservative commentator William F. Buckley, who hosted TV's Firing Line from 1966 to 1999, died Wednesday at age 82. His body was found slumped over the desk in the study of his home in Stamford, CT. The cause of death was not immediately determined, although he had reportedly been suffering from emphysema and diabetes. Three years before Buckley shut it down, Firing Line became television's longest running program with a single host, beating out the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. Controversial and iconoclastic to the end, Buckley infuriated fellow conservatives in recent years by his condemnation of the Iraq war and his expressions of scorn for President Bush, who, he said, lacked an "effective conservative ideology."