Sumner Redstone’s Viacom Inc will launch a premium TV and movie channel with Lionsgate and MGM, aiming a direct volley at Time Warner’s HBO as well as Redstone’s own Showtime networks owned by CBS Corp. The new channel will have originally produced television series, as well as feature upcoming movies and classic hits. It is expected to launch in autumn 2009, the companies said in a statement on Sunday.

United Artists, the studio founded by movie greats Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith some 85 years ago and responsible for delivering such iconic film franchises as "Rocky," "Pink Panther" and "James Bond," will be reborn under a partnership formed between Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) is teaming with the G4 television network, Brooksfilms Limited, and Berliner Film Companie GmbH (Berliner) on the U.S. release of a new original television series based on the classic Mel Brooks comedy "Spaceballs."

MGM has acquired all North American rights to RESCUE DAWN, the survival story of Dieter Dengler, an American pilot shot down in Viet Cong territory, written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Christian Bale, it was announced today by the company’s COO Rick Sands