Film composer Ravi dies at 86

Bollywood composer Ravi Shankar Sharma, whose tune "Darshan do Ghanashyam" was utilized in "Slumdog Uniform," died March 7 inside a Mumbai, India, hospital where he was accepted after two cardiac arrest. He was 86.Ravi, who passed his name, composed music in excess of 70 Hindi films too for numerous regional photos. An obscure number in 1957's "Narsi Bhagat" acquired notice if this was utilized in "Slumdog" among the questions the protag needs to answer. Pic wrongly credited 15th century poet Surdas using the song, a well known fact not lost on many Indians.One of many hits that Ravi composed music for were tunes in "Chaudhvin ka chand," "Humraaz," "Waqt," "Phool aur pathar" and "Neel kamal."The self-trained music performer was destitute as he is discovered by composer Hemant Kumar in a stop in Mumbai in 1952. Hired on being an assistant, he continued to compose music for Malayalam and Hindi films and also got his large burglary 1960 with Guru Dutt's "Chaudhvin ka chand," whose breathtaking tunes, such as the titular number, assisted result in the pic a success.He gave a brand new dimension to thrush Asha Bhonsle, noted for sensuous tunes, using the philosophical "Tora guy darpan" in 1965's "Kaajal" and increased the location of singer Mahendra Kapoor.Ravi was absent in the creating scene for quite some time starting in 1972 1980's "Nikaah," using its "Dil ke armaan," introduced him to Mumbai as "Bombay Ravi." After 1984's "Mehndi," he drifted to Malayalam films.Scribe Raju Bharatan, author of "An Outing Lower Memory Lane" along with other books on Bollywood, stated, "That results in only Khayyam from the Grand Old Order," mentioning to composers of the era when music ruled Hindi films.Children incorporate a boy, Ajay, and daughter-in-law, thesp Varsha Usgaonkar. Contact Shalini Dore at shali.dore@variety.com

Telemundo adds senior V . p . in news

Telemundo is constantly strengthen its national news operation while using appointment of Sylvia Rosabal as senior V . p . of network news. Rosabal joins the NBCUniversal-possessed broadcast internet after greater than 2 decades just like a news professional at Univision. In their new publish, she'll oversee all network news editorial content including online characteristics. Telemundo has pledged to step-up the quantity of their local and national news programming beneath the new Comcast-introduced regime at NBCU. Situated in Miami, Rosabal reviews to Alina Falcon, who grew to become part of Telemundo as professional veep of news and alternative programming from Univision late a year ago. Rosabal "features a deep understanding of Hispanic America together with an established history in journalism excellence that will strengthen the text with this particular audience and let us drive growth across our network news characteristics," Falcon mentioned in announcing the appointment. NBCUniversal Boss Steve Burke has reported Telemundo just like a prime growth prospect for your Peacock. Contact Cynthia Littleton at cynthia.littleton@variety.com

Mamie Gummer Lands The Lead In CW Drama Pilot First Cut

EXCLUSIVE: A week after her mom won her third Oscar, Mamie Gummer has landed her first pilot starring role. Gummer, daughter of acting great Meryl Streep, has been cast as the lead in the CWs Jennie Snyder Urman medical drama pilot aka First Cut. The project, from CBS TV Studios, centers on Emily (Gummer), a newly minted doctor who, glad to leave her nerdy past behind for a fresh start in the adult professional world, discovers that, sadly and comically, life at the hospital where she works is no different than high school. Gilmore Girls alumna Urman wrote the script and is executive producing with Dan Jinks. Bharat Nalluri is directing. Gummer’s previous series regular role was also on a medical drama, ABC’s Off The Map. She has recently recurred on CBS’ The Good Wife. At the CW, Gummer joins two other offspring of movie icons, Gregory Peck’s grandson Ethan Peck, who co-stars in the pilot The Selection, and Steve McQueen’s grandson Steven R. McQueen, who co-stars on hit series The Vampire Diaries.

Poster Premiere: Ron Perlman Goes Transgender in Frankie Go Boom

Although some marketing efforts have to have a close read, others allow no margin for misundertanding what they're, where they are available from, or the things they portend. Take author-director Jordan Roberts's comedy Frankie Go Boom, which premieres a few days ago at South By Southwest with perhaps the very best tagline associated with a festival film ever and also the commitment of Ron Perlman entirely transgender mode. Get the first consider the poster - along with a tagline translation - following the jump. Perfect! Now in British: Frank Bartlett continues to be tortured, embarrassed and humiliated by his brother Bruce - usually on film - his entire existence. Since Bruce is finally off drugs and it has switched his existence around, things ought to be different. They aren't. And why might that be? Another bit in the synopsis distributed around Movieline: While attempting to remove a compromising video from the web, two siblings (Charlie Hunnam and Chris O'Dowd) go to a brilliant computer hacker named Phil (Ron Perlman). However when they make it happen, they uncover that Phil has become Phyllis... ...and she or he doesn't have aim of helping them for "free." The relaxation will stay a mysterious until Frankie Go Boom unspools the very first time Saturday evening in Austin, where Movieline's own Jen Yamato is going to be available for any look. Uphold for your and much more from SXSW. And please form an orderly queue until these one-sheets are for sale to the house, work, and beyond. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

Vatican grows programs

What's in the Vatican application?Until recently the Holy See's high-tech endeavors -- for instance iBrevary, Pope2You, as well as the JPII application -- are actually about hopes and pontiffs.In a departure, a completely new Vatican application, Lux in Arcana, continues to be dedicated to Giordano Bruno, the 16th century heretic friar burned alive in Rome. It features graphics of Giordano's pyre on Rome's Campo de' Fiori square and what remains in the legendary free-thinker's Inquisition file inside the Vatican Secret Archives.The Accenture-developed application, being launched Feb. 29, also provides multimedia links to Bruno's existence and works also to other Vatican Secret Archives files displayed the first time in the Rome exhibition. The unequalled disclosure, paradoxically, comes similar to the Vatican indicates while using so-referred to as Vati-leaks scandal over leaked documents, plus a memo going for a chance of a plot to eliminate the present pope.Vatican techies started veering in the strictly religious late a year ago when the Vatican Library as well as the National Geographic Funnel launched a Michelangelo application featuring sketches and documents with the Renaissance great.Nowadays, religion-related programs created by outsiders will be the bane in the Holy See. Captured the Vatican lashed out against "Confession: A Roman Catholic Application" created by Indiana-based Little iApps. He reminded Roman Catholics that you can't really confess their sins utilizing a smartphone. Contact Nick Vivarelli at nvivarelli@gmail.com

Tuner version of 'The Bodyguard' set to bow

Heather Headley will play the Whitney Houston role in a stage tuner version of the 1992 Kevin Costner movie "The Bodyguard," opening at London's Adelphi theater in the fall. Houston's recent death might look like the spur to the production but the tuner has been in the works for some time. Produced by David Ian ("Grease," "The Sound of Music") and Michael Harrison, it was originally skedded to open this spring at the Aldwych Theater with Alexandra Burke, winner of TV's "The X Factor" in the Houston role. Thea Sharrock ("Equus") will direct the show, which will have a book by Alex Dinelaris ("Zanna, Don't") and additional songs from Houston's back catalog. The show marks the U.K. stage debut for Grammy winner Headley, who also won the Best Actress Tony for her perf in Disney's "Aida." Further casting has yet to be announced. Although dates have yet to be confirmed, the production will follow the strictly limited engagement of the transfer of the Chichester Festival Theater's SRO production "Sweeney Todd." Contact David Benedict at benedictdavid@mac.com

Roberts, Povinelli on 'Hot' streak

Eric Roberts and Mark Povinelli have signed on since the male leads inside the Susan Seidelman-helmed basketball comedy "The Menopause Flashes," starring Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Melanie Griffith, Wanda Sykes and Camryn Manheim. Principal photography began Monday in New Orleans. Film continues to be produced by Nina Henderson Moore, Kaira Hennig and Seidelman, with Laurie Lacob professional creating. "The Menopause Flashes," composed by Hennig, concentrates on an unlikely team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former secondary school champs, who challenge the current arrogant secondary school girls' condition champs to enhance money for breast cancers prevention.Roberts may have the estranged husband in the lead character referred to by Shields Povinelli will be the team's cranky coach.Shields plays the Flashes' team captain while Hannah shows a closeted lesbian fighting to manage inside the small Texas town. Griffith shows a five-time divorcee who joins they to have the ability to get even using one of her ex-husbands, your brain coach in the competitors. Sykes might be the mayor and merely African-American inside the small Texas town Manheim is certainly an an overweight teammate getting an idea for cannabis-laced desserts.Lightning Entertainment is handling worldwide sales. Contact Dork McNary at dork.mcnary@variety.com

WB taps Davies, del Toro for 'Beast'

Del ToroWatsonDavies Guillermo del Toro will direct "Beast," a new take on the "Beauty and the Beast" tale that Warners has tapped "Bridget Jones's Diary" scribe Andrew Davies to write.WB's "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson is in final negotiations to topline the period pic. Del Toro was originally on board just to produce. DiNovi Pictures' Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan will produce with del Toro, who plans to write a treatment from which Davies will work. Del Toro, who's currently filming "Pacific Rim" for WB and Legendary Pictures, is credited as a co-writer on both of WB's upcoming "Hobbit" movies. He recently exec produced Universal's "Mama" and DreamWorks Animation's "Rise of the Guardians."Having wrapped her long-running role as Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" pics, Watson will next reteam with "Deathly Hallows" director David Yates. She co-stars in "My Week With Marilyn" and will soon be seen in Summit's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."Davies, who wrote "Bridget Jones's Diary" and its 2004 sequel, most recently penned "The Three Musketeers" and "Brideshead Revisited."WME reps both del Toro and Watson, who are also respectively repped by Exile Entertainment and U.K.-based Markham, Froggatt and Irwin. Davies is repped by CAA. Contact Jeff Sneider at jeff.sneider@variety.com

NBCU, Google to check Olympic games coverage

Aerial images from December show the transformation from the Olympic Park working in london, in which the Summer time Games is going to be held. Searching to create its 2012 Olympic games coverage a testbed for calculating mix-platform viewing, NBCUniversal has arranged Google and Comscore for a number of close ties. Google will appraise the Olympic viewing habits of three,000 customers who've signed up to obtain their multiplatform usage monitored by the organization. Comscore will use a subset of the panel with 10,000 customers to be able to develop on demographic designs. The significance of understanding progressively complex viewing habits was underscored a week ago by new mix-platform Nielsen data that found TV consumption shedding among audiences 18-34. That demo might be shifting its videowatching to digital platforms in ways that existing measurement abilities don't have the sophistication to completely note. "The issue is, as people migrate and employ other platforms, unless of course we obtain credit for your viewing, it is going to have serious implications for that industry," stated Alan Wurtzel, leader of research at NBCU. NBCU has multiple goals for that research initiative. Through getting a handle how eyeballs scatter across different media when consuming the Olympic games, the conglom will receive a better handle on programming the teambuilding, that has been challenging because the 100s of hrs were first spread beyond TV to the web. The Olympic games will also be about as near as scientists could possibly get to catching a peek at what the way forward for media consumption is going to be like because of the sheer amount of content that streams across TV, the net and wireless products for any sustained time period. "It's like Haley's comet, you need to employ this unique chance to know contemporary behavior," stated Wurtzel. That understanding wouldn't simply be answer to giving NBCU an awareness of methods to program mix-platform later on but exactly how to monetize growing interest from marketers who wish to have more ambitious using their marketing beyond TV. Wurtzel rejected to show the other companies is going to be joining up with NBCU but stated that social networking and out-of-home viewing are the key areas that may also be handled. Bulletins which companies is going to be focusing on individuals areas are required within the coming days. The 2012 Games, that will bow in This summer from London, will mark the continuation of the items Wurtzel has named "the billion-dollar lab" -- research assets put on quantifying viewing designs for that Olympic games, which NBCU has compensated massive sums to possess the privileges to for that expected future. The conglom is relying on a brand new batch of information to predict alterations in content consumption the way in which its research unit handled to complete in the 2010 Games in Vancouver. Findings incorporated explosive development in video around the apple iphone along with a preference for content delivery via applications within the WAP-based mobile platform which has since fallen into relative disuse. But individuals findings were learned from the small sample that'll be dwarfed in what Google, Comscore yet others will have the ability to utilize. Furthermore, you will see more platforms to pay for this season given pills such as the iPad which were barely around 2 yrs ago are actually significant distribution points. Mobile viewing generally is continuing to grow in ways which makes the takeaway in the last Olympic games almost obsolete. "It astounds me to consider just how much the earth has transformed since Vancouver this year,Inch stated Wurtzel. NBCU has yet to specify its specific programming plans for that 2012 Olympic games, but has established that live feeds is going to be on digital platforms as the conglom's variety of Television channels may have more programming hrs than ever before. Contact Andrew Wallenstein at andrew.wallenstein@variety.com

Disney Buys Max Landis' Latest

Chronicle author sells adventure picIt must feel very good to become Max Landis at the moment. Besides he have buzzed-about script Chronicle set hitting movie theaters the following month, but he's been winning one much talked about writing job to another and selling pitches like they include coupons for world domination attached. Now Disney may be the latest studio to snap up among his ideas, nabbing a brand new adventure pic.As the title remains a mysterious (or has not yet been made the decision, a minimum of), what we should understand about the fundamental plot finds a brother and sister aiming with an epic adventure.Landis has script pitches sitting at a number of galleries, together with a Frankenstein tale along with a new undertake the Pied Piper at Fox (that is delivering Chronicle) and adventure thriller Amnesty at Universal, which Ron Howard is mounted on direct once he's finished focusing on Hurry. Plus there is action comedy Good Time Gang, that has Mark Wahlberg and Jonah Hill aboard to experience mercenaries.Once we pointed out above, he's been drawing lots of popularity of super-powered teen drama Chronicle, that will touch lower here on Feb 1.

Mary J. Blige To Pen Song For Sundance Documentary

First Published: January 21, 2012 10:42 AM EST Credit: FilmMagic PARK CITY, Utah -- Caption Mary J Blige attends the 10th Annual Gotham Magazine gala at Capitale on October 14, 2010 in NY CityMary J. Blige is lending her support and her voice to a documentary showing at the Sundance Film Festival about sexual assault in the U.S. military. Blige attended the Friday world premiere of The Invisible War. Producer Amy Ziering says the multiple Grammy winner would write an original song for the film after the Sundance festival. Bliges song, Need Someone, plays over the closing credits of the film. Written and directed by Kirby Dick, The Invisible War examines the trauma suffered by female and male victims of rape at the hands of their military colleagues and the difficulty they have in prosecuting their attackers. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California,U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio also attended the premiere. Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Susan Lucci to Host Deadly Matters on Analysis Discovery

Susan Lucci Cleaning soap opera scams are going to arrived at existence for those My Children's Susan Lucci. Most widely known on her turn as Erica Kane around the ABC cleaning soap, Lucci continues to be drawn on to host and narrate Deadly Matters, a brand new original series slated to debut within the fall on Analysis Discovery. Browse the relaxation of present day news The Ten-part series, that will begin filming in March, will feature the actual-existence tales of office romances, love triangles and infidelity. "There's virtually no other actress on the planet more qualified than Susan Lucci to host Deadly Matters, Analysis Discovery's response to addictive daytime cleaning soap operas," stated Leader and Gm of I.D. Henry Schleff. "While our series, obviously, has got the additional benefit of featuring real tales of unfaithfulness, we're delighted that Susan brings her very own distinctive voice and dramatic flair to the real existence cleaning soap." Are you going to watch Deadly Matters?

Rankings: Are You Currently There,Chelsea? Will get Off and away to a So-So Start

Laura Prepon Chelsea Handler has three shows... for the time being. The sitcom according to her existence opened to so-so amounts Wednesday, though these were great for NBC, which crowed the program attracted the very best viewership within the Wednesday-at-8:30/7:30 time slot in at least a year.In accordance to Nielsen overnight data, the brand new show's audience enhanced by 6 % upon its lead-in, Whitney, which itself obtained an 11 percent increase within the sitcom's last original episode at the begining of December, if this broadcast on Thursday following the Office. Nevertheless, Suburgatory far outpaced Are You Currently There, Chelsea? More perspective: The premiere of yankee Idol is simply nearby.CBS' 38th annual Individuals Choice Honours published a rating which was lower 7 percent from last year. And ABC loved its usual strong Wednesday prime time, brought by Modern Family, as the debut of 1 Tree Hill's ninth and final season gave The CW its best showing within the time slot in nearly annually.Browse the relaxation from the day's news on TVGuide.com8 p.m.CBS: Criminal Minds [rerun] 8.87 million audiences (2. demo rating)ABC: The Center 9.59 million (3.) Suburgatory 8.96 million (2.9)Fox: Mobbed [rerun] 2.73 million (.9)NBC: Whitney 6.06 million (2.1) Are You Currently There, Chelsea? 6.43 million (2.3)CW: One Tree Hill 1.75 million (.9)9 p.m.CBS: Individuals Choice Honours 8.88 million audiences (2.5 demo rating) ABC: Modern Family 12.33 million (5.1) Happy Being 7.07 million (3.1)Fox: Mobbed 3.34 million (1.2)NBC: Harry's Law 8.sixty five million (1.4)CW: One Tree Hill [rerun] 824,000 (.3)10 p.m.ABC: Revenge 7.51 million (2.4)NBC: Law & Order: Special Sufferers Unit [rerun] 8.36 million (1.1)