Inside Daily Variety: November 27

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Insided Daily Variety highlights - November 27

Headlines:

ARGENTINA POISED TO DETOUR CRASH

CBS EYES KIDVID REVAMP

BBC, CHANNEL 5 SHARE BLOCKBUSTER BROADCAST RIGHTS

BERMAN BARGAINS FOR NUDE WRITER

TURNER NIXES DIRECTV LATIN ADS AFTER BOYCOTT

TCI TO PONY UP DISCOVERY RATE HIKES

BERLIN FILM FEST TO LAUREL NOVAK WITH GOLDEN BEAR

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ARGENTINA POISED TO DETOUR CRASH

BUENOS AIRES (Variety) - Argentina may be next to join the ranks of countries banning David Cronenberg's sex-and-wrecks pic Crash. A lobby group for victims of auto accidents filed a civil suit Monday petitioning a ban of the film, which opened here Nov. 21 Thursday. Gregorio Dalbon, head of Familiares y Victimas del Transito, told local reporters he intended to halt the exhibition of "this ominous film." He added that, given a local rate of 30 traffic-related deaths per day, the film would only increase the collective violence of drivers.

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CBS EYES KIDVID REVAMP

NEW YORK (Variety) - An animated newshound and Sports Illustrated are in line to take the place of Ace Ventura and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on CBS's Saturday kidvid schedule next fall. The Eye web next week is expected to announce plans to abandon its current programming strategy for the daypart, where it's running a distant fourth among kids 2-11 behind Fox, Nickelodeon, ABC and the WB.

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BBC, CHANNEL 5 SHARE BLOCKBUSTER BROADCAST RIGHTS

LONDON (Variety) - The BBC and the upcoming Channel 5 have struck a groundbreaking $40 million deal with 20th Century Fox to share a high-profile package of movies including Independence Day and Braveheart. This is the first time the pubcaster has split U.K. free TV rights to major Hollywood movies with the upstart private web, which is due to launch next March.

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BERMAN BARGAINS FOR NUDE WRITER

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Bruce Berman's Plan B Entertainment is nearing a deal to buy a romantic comedy project from Julianna Lavin, the writer and director of Live Nude Girls. Project came in on a pitch, and Lavin will write the screenplay and possibly direct. The project's title was not disclosed, but it centers on a young woman in the late 1960s, and is expected to incorporate music from the era.

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TURNER NIXES DIRECTV LATIN ADS AFTER BOYCOTT

MEXICO CITY (Variety) - Following a Mexican boycott of its cable nets, Turner Intl. has relented to cable operators' demands and dropped a controversial ad campaign for satcaster DirecTV Latin America. Most operators affiliated with Mexican programming broker PCTV -- repping two-thirds of Mexico's 1.8 million subscriber base -- dropped Turner webs Cartoon, TNT and CNN Intl. two weeks ago.

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TCI TO PONY UP DISCOVERY RATE HIKES

NEW YORK (Variety) - Just a week after publicly announcing plans to play hardball with cable programmers on prices, cable giant Tele-Communications Inc. has agreed to pay big rate hikes for its half-owned cable network group Discovery Communications, Wall Street sources say. Word of the rate increase leaked out on Wall Street Tuesday and helped spur a 62 cent rise in the stock price of TCI's programming affiliate Liberty Media Inc., which directly owns the 49% stake in Discovery.

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BERLIN FILM FEST TO LAUREL NOVAK WITH GOLDEN BEAR

BERLIN (Variety) - Actress Kim Novak will be presented with a Golden Bear award for lifetime achievement at the 47th annual Berlin Intl. Film Festival, which takes place Feb. 13-24. A selection of 13 films spanning all phases of Novak's career will be shown at the festival, beginning with Richard Quine's film noir Pushover (1954) and ending with Tony Palmer's The Children (1989). As a special event, festival audiences will be treated to a newly restored 70-mm version of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), in which Novak played her most famous role.

Reuters/Variety