In this Jan. 13, 2013 file photo, director David Fincher arrives on the red carpet for the Netflix UK Premiere of 'House of Cards' at a Leicester Square cinema in London. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) --
Ben Affleck and David Fincher are reteaming for a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train."
On the heels of their box-office hit "Gone Girl," the star and the director will reunite for a film based on the 1951 classic in which two strangers meet on a train and conspire to carry out murders for one another. "Gone Girl" scribe Gillian Flynn is expected to write the screenplay, which originally came from Patricia Highsmith's novel.
Fincher's thriller is to move the initial meeting to a plane. Affleck will play the Farley Granger tennis star of the original, only he'll now be a Hollywood star in the midst of an Oscar campaign. "Gone Girl," itself in the Oscar mix, has made $365 million worldwide.
MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, left, Lawrence O'Donnell, center, and Chris Matthews take part in a panel discussion at the NBC Universal summer press tour, Aug. 2, 2011, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
Comcast's corporate reorganization means that there will soon be two television networks with "NBC" in their name — CNBC and MSNBC — that will no longer have any corporate connection to NBC News.
How that affects viewers of those networks, along with the people who work there, still needs to shake out. Their new corporate leader, Mark Lazarus, visited the set of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" as the plan was being announced on Wednesday and spoke to network staff members during a morning conference call to address concerns.
Comcast is spinning off most of its cable networks, also including USA, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and the Golf Channel, into a separate company. That recognizes how streaming is considered the future and the cable networks are a drag on the bottom line.
In the space of a lifetime, the networks went from upstarts aside a legacy operation like NBC to profitable superstars to castoffs.
Questions range from the simple to complex
Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Universal Media Group, is becoming CEO of the newly-formed company of cable networks, temporarily dubbed "SpinCo." Cesar Conde, who as NBC Universal News Group chairman had oversight of CNBC and MSNBC, will lose those networks from his portfolio, yet remain in charge of NBC News, NBC News Now streaming, Telemundo and the news operations of the NBC-owned local stations.
The presence of Lazarus and Anand Kini, who will be chief operating officer and chief financial officer of SpinCo, is a good sign for the new company, said Jessica Reif Ehrlich, research analyst for the Bank of America. "You can't dismiss it as getting rid of the crappy assets, because these are talented executives," she said.
At MSNBC, questions about the future range from the simple — will it even keep its... Read More
