Quick News On Justin Timberlake...
(10/1/04) MTV

Justin Timberlake already has one movie in the can — the film "Edison," which still hasn't found a distributor — and he's already on to a new role, in a picture that might make it into theaters first. Timberlake is just about to sign on for a role in the movie "Alpha Dog," according to The Hollywood Reporter. It's a supporting part, the best friend of a real-life character called Jesse James Hollywood, a drug dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to wind up on the FBI's most-wanted list. Also attached to the project are Emile Hirsch and Sharon Stone. The film will start shooting on October 25...

 

Young Hollywood: Too Much, Too Soon?
(10/1/04) NBC 17

So rich. So famous. So fabulous. So young.

While most teens and twentysomethings are dealing with final exams and acne breakouts, for young stars in Hollywood, it's a whole other universe.

But with seven-figure paychecks, extreme career pressure and the relentless pursuit of the paparazzi, can it be too much too soon?

...Former boy-bander-turned-blossoming actor Justin Timberlake, 23, reportedly made $24.7 million last year. Meanwhile, at 25, Usher's "Confessions" has gone platinum nine times over...

 

Timberlake, Hirsch 'Dog' it at Kimmel Ent.
(10/1/04) Chris Gardner and Liza Foreman The Hollywood Reporter

Justin Timberlake and Emile Hirsch are teaming to star in the Nick Cassavetes-directed "Alpha Dog," one of three feature film projects in varying stages of production from Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.

The company, previously based in New York, opened a Beverly Hills office today with several new executive hires and the intent of producing and financing up to 10 indie films per year.

Sharon Stone is set for a featured role in "Alpha Dog," which has an Oct. 25 start date and will be produced in association with A-Mark Entertainment.

...Timberlake is repped by UTA, manager Lynn Harless and the law firm Ziffren Brittenham Branca Fischer Gilbert-Lurie. "Alpha Dog" marks the first project the music star has attached himself to following his first acting outing in the indie drama "Edison" alongside Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, LL Cool J and Piper Perabo...

 

Fee for Moore appearance $30,000
(10/1/04) Khristopher J. Brooks Central Michigan Life

Office of Student Life reported Wednesday Program Board paid filmmaker Michael Moore $30,000 to speak in Rose Arena Monday...

“Some people will look at it and say it’s pretty high, but if you look at the people we’ve had before, this is good,” he said. “If you want to put it into perspective, Lance Bass was $25,000.”

Bass, of the music group NSYNC, spoke to a sold out, but much smaller crowd in Plachta Auditorium April 26...

 

SpaceShipOne's Heady Flight Path
(10/1/04) Otis Port Business Week

The $10 million X Prize is almost in the bank. On the morning of Sept. 29, SpaceShipOne was ferried aloft from the airport in Mojave, Calif. At about 48,000 feet, it was dropped by its White Knight mother plane, then lit its rocket, and soared to the edge of space, almost 68 miles (109 kilometers) up. That's several miles higher than its historic June 21 flight, when SpaceShipOne became the first privately developed craft to poke into space, nosing past an altitude of 62 miles.

For this flight, test pilot Mike Melvill -- who earned his astronaut's wings in June -- was accompanied by the weight of two psuedo passengers. To win the Ansari X Prize, a private spacecraft must carry the weight of three people to at least 100 km, or 62 miles, and then repeat the feat within a fortnight. SpaceShipOne's second X Prize flight is tentatively set for Oct. 4.

The date is, not coincidentally, the 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, which triggered the first space race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Oct. 4 is also the first day of World Space Week, organized by the U.N. to promote the second space race -- opening this frontier to tourism and other new commercial enterprises. The U.N. has enlisted such people as musician Lance Bass, a member of the band *NSYNC, to visit schools and explain to students how their generation of aerospace engineers and entrepreneurs will be the ones blazing new trails in space...