HE'LL BE BACK, THE OTHERS WON'T: Arnold Schwarzenegger telling Sci Fi Wire that T3: The Rise of the Machines, will follow a twentysomething John Connor, but actors Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton will not return. The sequel starts shooting April 15, with U-571 director Jonathan Mostow at the helm.
NURSERY NEWS: Eddie Murphy and his wife, Nicole, welcoming their fifth child Tuesday night in Los Angles. Bella Zahra weighed in a at 7 pounds, 6 ounces.
OSCAR UPDATE: Last year's Best Actor Oscar winner Russell Crowe is confirmed as a presenter for this year's Academy Awards ceremony. He'll likely present the award for Best Actress. Crowe is considered an Oscar frontrunner again for his role in A Beautiful Mind.
IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT: Alan Jackson's Drive remained number one on the album charts for a second straight week, selling 230,000 copies. Creed's Weathered held at number two.
THE HORROR: Stephen King's Rose Red miniseries on ABC, becoming the top-rated TV movie of the season. Part I on Sunday drew 20 million viewers and Monday's Part II attracted 18.7 million viewers. The series concludes Thursday.
KING ADD: Meanwhile, the prolific author telling the Los Angeles Times that he's going to quit publishing books because he's starting to repeat himself. Don't ready that goodbye card just yet: King says he still has at least five more novels on the way, including two this year, is developing a series for ABC and is working on a Broadway musical with John Mellencamp.
OPENING HIS WALLET: Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas and his wife, Anne, donating $2.5 million for renovation of the historic Culver Theater in Culver City, California. The refurbished venue will be reopened as the Kirk Douglas Theater in 2004.
NOT JUST A MAN'S WORLD: James Brown in a Los Angeles courtroom on Tuesday to defend himself against a $2 million lawsuit filed by a woman who claims the 68-year-old Godfather of Soul fired her after she rebuffed his sexual advances. Brown denies the allegations. Opening statements in the case are expected Wednesday.
JOINING FORCES: Radical rocker Patti Smith and celebrated author Susan Sontag teaming up for a retrospective look at Smith's long career. The two-disc album will include previously unreleased material and feature liner notes by Sontag. It is slated to hit stores on March 19.
DOUBLE TROUBLE: Joel and Ethan Coen in talks to write an update of the 1966 British caper comedy Gambit. The original was about a British thief in cahoots with a beautiful woman to rob a rich guy of his expensive statue--but the heist is imperiled by a series of double crosses. Hugh Grant is in talks to star.
DOUBLE TROUBLE II: Jude Law negotiating to star in Diary of a Young London Physician, writer-director David Mamet's take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Penélope Cruz in early talks to play the female lead.
AH-NULD ADD: Meanwhile, the action star also said that writer-director John Milius is working on a new draft for a proposed sequel to Conan the Barbarian.
FINALLY HERE? Universal, Fox, DreamWorks and Artisan Entertainment planning to release flicks like Die Hard, Independence Day and Terminator on a new, high-definition video format. The D-VHS will be playable on a forthcoming system from JVC for use with high-definition TV sets.
UPSET: For the first time in its five-year history, the Fox News Channel snagging a larger audience than CNN for a full month, according to January ratings. Fox News also won all key demographic categories for the month.
BIGGER IS BETTER: Following on the heels of last season's supersized Friends, NBC planning new extended episodes of Scrubs and Will & Grace next Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, for the all-important February sweeps.
STALLED: A federal judge on Tuesday barring MGM from running ads that say its upcoming movie Rollerball is from the same filmmakers behind rival studio Universal's street-racing hit, The Fast and the Furious after Universal claimed the association with the troubled Rollerball could hurt Universal's upstart franchise.
SUPER SUNDAY: CBS moving the two-hour final episode of the upcoming Survivor: Marquesas from its traditional Thursday-night slot to Sunday, May 19 at 8 p.m., where it will be followed by an hourlong post-show at 10 p.m.
AILING: Blues singer Koko Taylor, known as the "Queen of the Blues," in fair condition at a Chicago hospital after fainting at her South Side nightclub. Doctors performed a successful angioplasty after discovering a blocked artery and she's expected to recover.
MOURNED: Michael Hammond, the newly installed chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a lifelong student of the relationship between music and medicine, died Tuesday of natural causes just one week after assuming his position. He was 69.