Calling it "the one iceberg in [Titanic's] full-speed-ahead success story," the New York Times reported today (Monday) that Paramount's decision to sell TV rights to the movie to NBC for $30 million continues to produce angry recriminations at CBS and ABC, who have complained that Paramount excluded them from the bidding, and at Fox, which put up the lion's share of the film's $225 million-budget. (The Times notes that the Fox network, which originally was believed to have had a lock on the film rights, passed on a $20 million deal.) The Fox film studio is particularly upset, the newspaper suggested, over Paramount's decision not to include an escalator clause in its deal with NBC, tying the price for the rights to the movie's box-office performance. Fox execs also told the newspaper that they may subpoena Paramount's books to determine if any side deals were attached to the Titanic pact.

-- Dan Draghici (ddraghic@sprint.ca), April 27, 1998

Answers

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-- Thomas M. Terashima (titanicShack@yahoo.com), May 13, 1998.