A day after DreamWorks Animation severed its relationship with Aardman Animation, citing its unprofitable releases of Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit in 2005 and Flushed Away in 2006, Aardman said it is developing a new Wallace and Gromit movie. An Aardman spokesman told Reuters that Nick Park, who created the characters, is working on a script for a new feature. "What we have achieved [as a result of the split with DreamWorks Animation] is our freedom to make the film we want to make," spokesman Arthur Sheriff said Wednesday. Unlike Flushed Away, which was produced using computer animation, the new film will be produced using Aardman's signature Claymation technique. "Nick loves creating stories for Wallace and Gromit and he feels they only really work in plasticine," Sheriff said.

Warner Bros., which looked like it couldn't buy a hit for much of last year, saw its revenue drop more than 10 percent from 2005, according to Time Warner's SEC filing Wednesday. After such bombs as Poseidon, Lady in the Water, and the Ant Bully, not even hits like Happy Feet and The Departed late in the year could put the studio close to equaling its record earnings in 2005, when it released Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Batman Begins. Nevertheless Time Warner was able to report a 34-percent net gain for its fourth quarter due in large measure to the sale of AOL's businesses in France and the U.K.

Warner Home Video announced plans on Wednesday to reissue restored versions of some of Hollywood's greatest classics, packaged in DVD sets of three at just $30.97. "The Essential Classics Collections" will not include the numerous "extras" that were packaged with the films when they were released as multidisc collectors' editions. Most of the films were originally released by MGM, whose library was acquired by parent Time Warner when it took over Turner Broadcasting in 1997. Among the features included in the original packages are Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Singin' in the Rain, Meet Me in St. Louis, and My Fair Lady.

A study by Kansas State University psychology professor Richard Harris contradicts the popular notion that women drag men to "chick flicks" and that the men merely endure them. "The choice to view a romantic movie was usually made together as a couple, not just by the girl," Harris said in a statement released by the university. The study also indicated that men enjoy such films almost as much as the women surveyed. "I wouldn't write off the male audience just because it is a romantic film," Harris advised studio execs. "I would suggest marketing to the men in the audience." Last year Harris authored another study that appeared to validate gender stereotypes when it came to horror flicks. Watching them, guys generally acted brave; women often grabbed their date or covered their eyes. "Guys didn't like it when their date was unafraid, and girls didn't like it when their dates were scared," Harris said.

Within minutes after reports appeared that the final Harry Potter novel will be published on July 21, online book sellers were posting announcements that they would begin taking pre-publication orders for it. Interest in the last installment was piqued by author J.K. Rowling's recent revelation that two principal characters in the saga will be killed off (possibly Harry himself). Publication of the book will be preceded one week earlier (July 13) by the penultimate Harry Potter movie, The Order of the Phoenix.

Questions were being raised today (Thursday) about whether television contributed to the near panic that gripped Boston Wednesday after a number of mysterious devices were discovered that authorities suspected could have been planted by terrorists. At least one Boston station cut out of regular programming and began continuous live coverage after police closed off some major roads and halted several subway trains. Station execs in Boston defended their coverage, noting that the police action had brought commerce in the city to a standstill. But Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, told the Boston Globe that reporters had excessively speculated about bombs and terrorism. "If you have no evidence that anything bad has happened ... you shouldn't run the worst-case scenario," he said. Late in the day, Turner Broadcasting disclosed that the devices were merely magnetic lights intended to promote the Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force and that they had been part of an outdoor marketing campaign that had been in place for two to three weeks not only in Boston but in nine other cities as well.

Even though it aired before Wednesday night's edition of American Idol, Fox's Bones scored its best ratings of the season, registering a solid 8.5 rating and a 13 share. It beat out a rerun of CBS's CSI:NY, which drew only a 5.7/9. NBC's struggling Friday Night Lights was overshadowed with a 4.0/6. At 9:00 p.m., American Idol was all she wrote. The one-hour show scored a whopping 19.0/27, translating to 31.45 million viewers, well above the numbers watching the other major networks combined.

Although the four major networks are planning a slew of impressive specials for the February sweeps, CBS is regarded as a shoo-in to win, thanks primarily to its coverage Sunday of the Super Bowl. The network also will air the Grammys on Feb. 11, featuring a reunion of The Police. ABC will likely place second, thanks to its coverage of the Academy Awards on Feb. 25, preceded three days earlier with an Oprah Winfrey Oscar special. On Feb. 27, the network will air a documentary, Iraq and Back, in which former anchor Bob Woodruff will report on his near-fatal wounding in Iraq a year ago and his rehabilitation. ABC also plans to air a three-episode Grey's Anatomy "story arc" against CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on Thursday nights. Meanwhile, Fox will remain a tough contender with American Idol and House, while NBC does its best to stave off the onslaught, mostly by enhancing its existing line-up with guest-star appearances.

Frustrated by the decision of CBS Evening News producers not to air her report about street fighting in Baghdad and instead merely post it on the CBS News website, correspondent Lara Logan sent an email to friends and family asking them to spread the word about her report and to "pass the link on to as many people as you know." (It ends with an Iraqi man blaming the U.S. for the "death and destruction" that has occurred in the country.) "It should be seen," Logan said in her email. "And people should know about this." A CBS News spokesperson told the Associated Press Wednesday that the network deemed the images too graphic to broadcast.

The Columbia Journalism Review has run excerpts from online chats between Perverted Justice personnel posing as minors and their marks, who later wound up facing cameras on NBC's Dateline as part of the news magazine's "To Catch a Predator" series. In each of the chats, the Perverted Justice decoy appears to take the initiative in proposing a sexual liaison. The magazine points out that "as a legal matter, the enticements offered by the decoys are of little importance to the police ... but journalistically it looks a lot like crossing the line from reporting the news to creating the news." CJR concludes that competition from reality shows has altered the face of news magazines. It quotes a former NBC News producer as saying, "About the only thing [NBC programming executives] really want newsmagazines to do now is crime. ... If it's not crime, they don't think they can sell it. The traditional investigative reporting on shows like Dateline, or 48 Hours, or Primetime Live is no more." (60 Minutes was cited as a notable exception.)

A fast-acting technical director may have prevented the f-word from getting on the air during Wednesday's Today show on NBC. Going into a commercial break at about 8:30 a.m., actress Sienna Miller, who had appeared on the show to promote her latest movie, Factory Girl, was seen waving to the crowd outside the street-front studio in New York's Rockefeller Plaza. She began looking somewhat uncomfortable as the camera remained on her while she waved, then as a title card appeared, her voice could be heard, saying "fuh..." before it was clipped off. However, the TVNewser website said that it had received several email messages from viewers saying that they had heard Miller utter the words, "F***ing hell!"