A zombie TV movie is bringing together members of two boy bands. Backstreet Boys' Nick Carter, A J McLean and Howie Dorough will star in the Syfy channel's Dead 7, along with Joey Fatone of 'N Sync fame. According to the film production company The Asylum, the post-apocalyptic drama follows ragtag gunslingers trying to free a town of a zombie plague. Carter is also producing and co-writing the film and his wife, Lauren Kitt Carter, will join him as part of the cast. Dead 7 is scheduled to be released in 2016. – AP
$2m cut from Thicke and Pharrell's lawsuit payment
Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams gained a partial victory in the copyright infringement case surrounding their 2013 hit Blurred Lines. A judge on Tuesday trimmed more than US$2 million (Dh7.3m) – from $7.4m to $5.3m – from a March verdict stating that elements of the song copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit Got to Give It Up. The new court ruling gives Marvin Gaye's family more than 50 per cent of the song's future royalties. The court rejected requests by Thicke and Williams's lawyers for a new trial and also refused to issue an injunction requested by Gaye's family that would have temporarily blocked sales and performances of Blurred Lines. – AP
Varun Dhawan is a big fan of Baahubali
ABCD 2 actor Varun Dhawan declared himself a big fan of director S S Rajamouli's latest work, the epic fantasy film Baahubali. "I think anyone who loves cinema should watch this movie," he said. "I think it's an achievement and all the artists' performances are superb." The film, starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty and Tamannaah Bhatia, follows two brothers at war over an ancient kingdom. Baahubali was released on July 10 and became the fastest Indian film to enter the 100-crore club (almost Dh58 million) within two days – IANS
Snowden filmmaker sues US Government
Filmmaker Laura Poitras is suing the United States government for repeatedly detaining her at immigration checkpoints. Poitras is seeking the release of six years of records that document how she was searched, questioned and sometimes held for hours at US and foreign airports on more than 50 occasions between 2006 and 2012. "I'm filing this lawsuit because the government uses the US border to bypass the rule of law," she said in a statement issued by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit watchdog group that is representing her. "This simply should not be tolerated in a democracy." Poitras's documentary about fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, Citizen Four, won this year's Oscar for Best Documentary. – AFP
Suriya to work on Telugu-Tamil bilingual film
Actor Suriya is set to team up with Telugu filmmaker Trivikram Srinivas for an untitled Telugu-Tamil bilingual film. "Trivikram has already been given the advance for the project. It will go on the floor after Suriya completes shooting his upcoming films 24, Singam 3 and a yet-untitled film with the Sathuranga Vettai director," according to a source close to the project. "His project with Trivikram will most likely go on floors mid next year. By then, he should be relieved off all his existing projects," the source said. – IANS