Maybe it was due to the writers strike, a downturn in the public’s enthusiasm about the year’s best performances at movies or celebrity overload but for whatever reason a lot less people tuned in to watch the 80^th Annual Academy Awards this year. According to the Nielsen estimates about 32 million people watched the broadcast on ABC which is down 9 million from last year’s broadcast. The highest Oscar ratings were recorded in 1998 when “Titanic” swept an impressive 11 categories including Best Picture.

Oscar host Jon Stewart kept the three-hour program moving ahead during segments and also won accolades when he brought out Marketa Irglova so she could have her moment and chance to say thank you for winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Just before the commercial break Irglova’s partner Glen Hansard say his thank yous but as Irglova walked up to the microphone conductor Bill Conti started up his orchestra and drowned out her acceptance speech. Stewart corrected the oversight and won instant coolness with the viewers by letting the starstuck young musician “enjoy her moment.”

Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell will add their star power to Heath Ledger’s last movie project, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”. The three leading men have all agreed to sign on to director Terry Gilliam’s fantasy movie and help him complete it after the tragic passing of Ledger shut down the production last month. The idea can work for this movie because there is already an element of magic associated with the story. Ledger’s character is a performer in a magical theater company and can alter his appearance. Depp, Law and Farrell will take over the acting role in various segments of the picture but still try and retain the same style and mannerisms of Ledger’s performance.

“I will be honored to be part of that. It makes me feel uncomfortable to think about it too much and to get into it really here, but it’s an incredibly painful honor… and an honor I wish wasn’t bestowed (on me), but an honor none-the-less,” said Colin Farrell about being asked to take part in the movie. “It’s about getting Heath’s work out there… He’s too good for any of his work not to be seen, you know, and I’m really keen and looking forward to doing it and just doing the best job I can do.”

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is now filming in Australia. The first spinoff from 20^th Century Fox’s successful “X-Men” film franchise is being directed by Gavin Hood. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, a mutant with a swift healing factor and a metal-laced skeleton that makes him the perfect killing machine. “X-Men Origins” will show us what it promises, namely the origin of Wolverine, how he came to be trained as a killer for the military, the process by which the adamantium metal was fused to his skeleton as well as other surprises including new and returning mutant characters.

“I think one of the reasons the X-Men took off is that it connected in a way nobody saw,” Jackman said recently about why the franchise was so big with people. “They’re mutants with powers. But they’re also outcasts for being, and everyone connects with that on some level. And who wouldn’t want the power to get back at the people who ostracized you?”

Jackman is also a producer on the new movie. If “Wolverine” is a hit like the three “X-Men” movies Fox already has a plan to spinoff the villain “Magneto” in his own film. Ian McKellen played the silver-haired foe throughout the “X-Men” series and is game for returning in another film.

“Jaws” actor Roy Scheider died on Sunday at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock. He was 75 and was been treated during the last two years for multiple myeloma at the hospital.

Scheider starred in Steven Spielberg’s first blockbuster as the police chief of an island terrorized by a great white shark. “Jaws” was the first movie ever to gross more than $100 million at the box office and it launched Spielberg’s career into orbit. Scheider was twice nominated for Oscars, once for his performance as Gene Hackman’s partner in “The French Connection” and the other time for his role as a dancer in “All That Jazz”.

His other films include “Klute” with Jane Fonda, “Blue Thunder”, “2010” and “Marathon Man”. Scheider is survived by his three children and his second wife, actress Brenda King.

The movie debut of teen pop singer and television star Miley Cyrus transformed into box office gold for Walt Disney. The phenom’s first movie is Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert which was filmed last year during her America-wide tour and using 3-D cameras. In the film’s first weekend in theaters the movie earned $29,000,000 and emerged as the number one movie at the box office. Tweens packed sold-out theaters while their parents attended Super Bowl parties or watching the game on Sunday afternoon. Disney had told fans of the star that the 3-D movie would only play in theaters for a limited one week run but the company has now reconsidered their plans in light of the grosses. Now the film will have a longer run in the movie theaters equipped to show the special 3-D picture.

Two of television’s most watched entertainment news programs have caved in to mounting pressure generated by Hollywood public relation firms and celebrities dismayed over the sensationalist reporting of the death of Heath Ledger. After a promo aired on “The Insider” soliciting an upcoming story that would have aired footage from a two-year old video showing Ledger at a Hollywood party where one person was seen snorting cocaine, the Hollywood press relations firm ID PR sent a letter to the program requesting that it not air. The sister show of “Insider” is “Entertainment Tonight” and it is likely that both programs would have aired material from the grainy video which it is rumored the shows producers paid in excess of $100,000 for.

“This is not journalism, it is sensationalism. It is a shameful exploitation of the lowest kind,” said Heath Ledger’s representative Mara Buxbaum.

The ID PR line in the sand was swiftly followed by several other major press relations firms. As well several of Hollywood’s top talent also stood behind the agency including Sarah Jessica Parker, Natalie Portman and Josh Brolin. The message being delivered to “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Insider” was clear: if you run this video don’t expect any more interviews from our celebrities again. Facing a public relations nightmare both “ET” and “Insider” backed down and decided to not air the Ledger party footage.