BSkyB has shown it still has a stranglehold over the best new movies on pay-TV as it signed a major rights deal with Disney, dealing a blow to online movie-streaming rivals NetFlix and Amazon's LoveFilm.

Subscription-price increases and a modest rise in customer numbers helped satellite broadcaster BSkyB report a strong rise in first-half profits.

Bollywood producer and distributor Eros International has just gone prime time.Its deal with HBO Asia, the pay TV group, is a "game changer" according to its house broker, Peel Hunt. The pair will launch two new premium, advertising-free movie channels, HBO Defined HBO Hits, in India.

Aardman's cartoon about Father Christmas and his two sons is bright, colourful fun.

Take one of the most popular games ever to hit the iPhone, mix it with the biggest movie franchise in the history of film, and what do you get? Angry Birds Star Wars.

Disney is said to have overpaid for Lucasfilm's Star Wars but the money's not at the box office any more

Fans can look forward to Episode 7 in the sci-fi franchise with George Lucas as consultant

Mention certain literary estates to any number of editors, publishers and writers and you will see them shudder. These guardians of dead writers' works can be ferocious protectors of reputations. Stephen Joyce, grandson of James, destroyed more than 1,000 letters written by the writer's disturbed daughter Lucia to her father – as well as some to her from the man she loved, Samuel Beckett. Beckett's own estate gets very exercised when directors play fast and loose with his stage works, and T S Eliot's widow, Valerie, is considered largely responsible for the snail's pace at which her late husband's letters have been published.

Disney is scrambling to defend itself against claims that a new cartoon character, billed as its first ever Hispanic princess, doesn't look sufficiently Hispanic.

Studio embroiled in another diversity row amid claims new character is not Hispanic enough

Pinewood Shepperton, the film and television studios group, is pushing ahead with expansion plans despite losing its major planning application this year.

Michael Owen and Carlos Tevez highlight the contempt with which many treat the game

The movie remake of The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has been moved for release to the summer of 2013 from December 2012, putting it out of contention for this year's Oscars.

Emma Stone  is to work with Cameron Crowe on his next movie project. Crowe is gearing up for a yet-to-be titled romantic drama for the US actress.