Vanished Child Case Delays Film Premiere
The British release and London Film Festival screening of Ben Affleck’s first full-length feature as a director, “Gone Baby Gone,” have been scrubbed because of its parallels to the case of Madeleine McCann, the British 4-year-old who vanished in Portugal in May, the BBC reported. The film, starring Mr. Affleck’s brother Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman, follows two Boston private detectives helping a police investigation of a missing child, played by Madeline O’Brien, who bears a close resemblance to the missing girl. In a statement explaining their decision to postpone the British release, scheduled for Dec. 28, Buena Vista International, the distributor, and Miramax, its subsidiary, said they were “sensitive to the depth of feeling surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.” Sandra Hebron, artistic director of the London Film Festival, where the movie was to have been shown on Oct. 26, said she supported the decision to withdraw the film, filmed last year and based on a 1998 Dennis Lehane novel of the same title. Speaking at the recent Deauville Film Festival, Ben Affleck said he was “acutely aware of the situation” regarding Madeleine McCann and called the release of the film “just a commercial matter, whereas this is a matter of life and death.” He added, “We don’t want to release the movie if it is going to touch a nerve or inflame anybody’s sensitivities.” A district attorney in Portugal is deciding whether to charge Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s parents, in the case. They were cited as suspects last week.
London Film Festival
The 51st London Film Festival, including 184 features and 133 shorts, is to open on Oct. 17 with the British premiere of “Eastern Promises” (review, Page 8), the David Cronenberg thriller starring Viggo Mortensen, and to close on Nov. 1 with the British premiere of “The Darjeeling Limited,” Wes Anderson’s account of three brothers crossing India on a train. With films from 43 countries, the festival will offer 7 world premieres, 128 British premieres and 29 premieres from elsewhere in Europe.
Rush for Zeppelin Seats
An estimated 20 million people rushed to register for tickets to the one-night stand by Led Zeppelin when the concert was announced on Wednesday, according to the promoters, the BBC reported. Registration for the £125 ($254) tickets ends at midday British time on Monday. The tickets for the concert on Nov. 26 at the 20,000-capacity O2 arena in Greenwich, England, will be distributed in a random drawing.
No Baby for Foxy Brown
Foxy Brown’s next issue will be an album, not a baby. Although the rapper’s defense lawyers said in court last month that she was three months pregnant, her manager, Chaz Williams, issued a statement on Wednesday saying, “And to the pregnancy rumors, this is the official statement: She is not pregnant.” Mr. Williams and Koch Records also announced that Ms. Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, would release the album “Brooklyn’s Don Diva” on Nov. 20, while serving a one-year jail sentence. Last Friday Ms. Brown was sentenced for violating probation arising from a fight with two manicurists in a nail salon in New York three years ago. “This is just a temporary situation,” she said in a statement. “I made my bed and have no problem lying in it. My will is steady. What doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger.”
Comedy and Crime
Share the Night
NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” earned Wednesday night’s top ratings among adults 18 to 49, but CBS still managed to finish No. 1 on the night over all with its lineup of crime drama repeats and “Power of 10.” Even as NBC’s stand-up comedy competition, whose final round will be broadcast next week, fared well in the 18-to-49 demographic, it drew just 6.5 million total viewers at 9 p.m., considerably behind CBS’s “Criminal Minds” rerun in the hour (8.1 million), Nielsen reported. CBS also easily led the 8 and 10 p.m. hours with “Power of 10” (7.8 million) and “CSI: NY” (8.9 million), respectively. NBC ended the night in second place. ABC and Fox, both largely broadcasting repeats, finished about even in third. ABC’s “Nascar in Primetime” drew just 2.7 million viewers at 10 in its fifth and final episode. BENJAMIN TOFF
Mary-Louise Parker Revisits the Stage
Mary-Louise Parker, who won a Tony Award in 2001 for “Proof,” was nominated for a Tony in 2005 for “Reckless” and won a Golden Globe for playing a suburban drug dealer in the television show “Weeds,” is returning to the New York stage. She will star alongside Kathleen Chalfant in the Playwrights Horizons production of Sarah Ruhl’s new play, “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” about a woman, played by Ms. Parker, who is sitting at a cafe and picks up a ringing cellphone that belonged to, well, a dead man. Previews are to begin on Feb. 8 with an opening night set for March 4. CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Auction for Signed Proof
Of Hemingway Novel
A signed proof of the 1940 Ernest Hemingway novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is to be offered by Swann Auction Galleries on Nov. 29 at a sale of 19th- and 20th-century literature, The Associated Press reported. The proof includes a handwritten dedication to Martha Gellhorn, then Hemingway’s fiancée and later his wife; Hemingway’s handwritten corrections; and an inscription to Toby Otto Bruce. Mr. Bruce, a longtime friend and employee, was Hemingway’s driver, secretary and handyman in Key West, Fla., and regularly proofread his manuscripts. Swann said the signed proof, the first such copy of the novel to surface, had descended through the Bruce family. It carries a presale estimate of $75,000 to $125,000.
Free Met Opera Events
Free tickets for the Metropolitan Opera’s final dress rehearsal of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” on Thursday will be available for the first time online (metopera.org) and by telephone: (212) 362-6000. The rehearsal begins at 11 a.m., and the doors open at 10. Tickets are limited to two a person. Once a reservation has been made, operagoers have until 8 p.m. Tuesday to pick up the tickets at the box office. The opening-night performance, at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 24, will be relayed to four screens in Times Square, where 1,500 seats will be available and additional standing room will be provided. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. At Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center, where 2,000 free seats will be available, the performance also will be relayed, but tickets, limited to two a person on a first-come-first-served basis, will be required. They will be at the Met box office beginning at noon on Sept. 23.
Footnote
The Los Angeles City Council has voted to name a block surrounding a CNN building in Hollywood in honor of the talk-show host Larry King, The Associated Press reported. Larry King Square will recognize Mr. King’s 50 years in broadcasting. The council also agreed to name an intersection near Paramount studios I Love Lucy Square in honor of the comedian Lucille Ball and Lucy Casada, who owned Lucy’s El Adobe Cafe, a popular restaurant there.
