(Reuters) - Media company Time Warner Inc reported fourth-quarter net income that beat estimates, raised its dividend and started a new stock repurchase program, sending its shares up 5 percent. Time Warner, which owns the CNN and TNT cable networks, premium TV service HBO, People magazine and a movie studio, said on Wednesday it is raising its quarterly dividend by 11 percent to $0.2875 per share. The company's board also authorized a new $4 billion share repurchase program that started in January. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh delves into the world of prescription drugs in his new film "Side Effects," a psychological thriller that opens on Friday. Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum play a couple whose lives unravel when she begins taking a new anti-anxiety medication prescribed by her psychiatrist, played by Jude Law. Soderbergh, 50, spoke with Reuters about his own experiences with prescription drugs, shooting in New York and what he plans to do on his self-imposed hiatus from film-making. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Daniel Day-Lewis is expected to make Hollywood history by winning his third Best Actor Oscar on February 24 but the public is split over who deserves the Best Supporting Actor prize, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday. Day-Lewis, 55, has already picked up almost every major award this season for playing U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Civil War-era drama "Lincoln" and he is front-runner for the top British BAFTA award on February 10. ...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Attending this year's Vienna Opera Ball will be a dream come true for Oscar-winning U.S. actress Mira Sorvino, she said on Wednesday as the Austrian capital put the finishing touches on it most glittering social event. "I feel like I'm going to be in a fairy tale ball, like Cinderella walking into the ball," she told reporters. "I just hope I am able to do the waltz correctly." Reports about which big names were coming and what they would wear to Thursday's dance have saturated Austrian media for days. ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bruce Willis says he's against new gun control laws that could infringe on Second Amendment rights. The "Die Hard" star also dismisses any link between Hollywood shootouts and real-life gun violence.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co beat estimates in quarterly adjusted earnings on Tuesday and said it expects the next few quarters to be better on a stronger lineup of films and growing attendance at its theme parks. The results, which come despite the rising costs of acquiring programming for its ESPN sports juggernaut and included its interactive unit swinging back to profit, helped lift shares in the media giant 1.7 percent in after-hours trading. Net income for its fiscal first quarter fell 6 percent to $1.38 billion. ...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — As Rep. Joe Courtney watched the Oscar-nominated "Lincoln" over the weekend, something didn't seem right to him.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A rare example of a grown-up story compellingly told from the perspective of children, "The Playroom" is a modest gem. This '70s-set drama depicting one tumultuous night in a suburban family's lives benefits from the admirably subtle approach by director Julia Dyer, working from a sensitive screenplay penned by her late sister Gretchen, with their brother Stephen serving as one of the producers. Unlike the dysfunctional one depicted onscreen, this family unit works together perfectly.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Disney is mining The Force for even more new films.

If "Side Effects" is indeed Steven Soderbergh's final film, as he's said it will be after toying with the notion of retirement for a couple of years now, then intriguingly it feels like he's coming full circle in some ways to the film that put him on the map: the trailblazing, 1989 indie "sex, lies and videotape."

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Disney is planning "Star Wars" spin-off movies in addition to the three sequels it has previously announced, Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger said Tuesday. The Disney head said that Lawrence Kasdan is working on one script for the films and Simon Kinberg is working on another. They will focus on characters from the "Star Wars" universe, but Iger did not offer any additional details. As TheWrap first reported, Disney has enlisted J.J. Abrams to direct the first film in a proposed new trilogy. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Chris Pratt has scored one of the lead roles in Marvel Studios' "Guardians of the Galaxy." The "Parks & Recreation" actor will play Star-Lord, the leader of a group of intergalactic heroes, an individual with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap. Marvel and parent company Disney hope that "Guardians" can be a comic book franchise to rival the $1.5 billion grossing "The Avengers." James Gunn ("Slither") is directing the film, which is scheduled to be released on August 1, 2014. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Cable network AMC and Double Feature Films, the production company behind "Django Unchained" and "Contagion," among others, have entered a first-look deal for television projects, the companies said Monday. Under the two-year agreement, Double Feature will develop and produce scripted TV projects for AMC, marking the first time that Double Feature has entered such a pact with a cable network. Double Feature partners Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg were executive producers on "Reno 911," which ran for six seasons on Comedy Central. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Look, up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's ... If the Motion Picture Association of America has its way, it soon could be a camera-equipped pilotless drone shooting the overhead chase scenes for Hollywood's action thrillers. The MPAA is pushing the Federal Aviation Administration to allow the use of what have been called "drones" - but in the movie business are far more likely the size of model planes and model helicopters than anything like what the U.S. is using to target terrorists. ...

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights to "Kill the Messenger," an upcoming film starring Jeremy Renner as prize-winning journalist Gary Webb, according to a Focus spokeswoman. Focus will distribute the film domestically and sell it internationally, initiating the deal making at the European Film Market in Berlin later this week. Michael Cuesta will direct the film from a script by Peter Landesman. Cuesta has made a quartet of films and directed several episodes of successful TV series "Six Feet Under," "Dexter" and "Homeland. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep will likely get to induct Daniel Day-Lewis into that triple-Oscar club on February 24 at the Dolby Theatre, while "The Sound of Music" star Christopher Plummer will probably hand the Best Supporting Actress award to a new screen-musical star, Anne Hathaway. Those are two conclusions to be drawn from the Academy's Tuesday announcement that last year's acting winners, Streep, Plummer, Jean Dujardin and Octavia Spencer, will return to serve as presenters on this year's Oscar telecast. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Online video streamer Netflix Inc has struck a deal to show the films produced by Flavor Unit Entertainment, the companies said on Tuesday. The deal will give Netflix the right of first refusal over the films by the production company, which has made films such as "Beauty Shop" and "Bringing Down the House," Netflix and Flavor Unit said in a joint release. This means the films will bypass premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime that have controlled the market of films to TV subscribers in the past. Flavor Unit is owned by actress and rapper Queen Latifah. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - If one were to judge by the amount of applause at Monday's Oscar Nominees Luncheon, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain have a formidable new rival for the Best Actress award in the pint-sized form of nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis. The young "Beasts of the Southern Wild" actress was the clear winner when it comes to the amount of applause garnered by the more than 150 nominees who were called to the front of the International Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Kristen Wiig will contribute to the lunacy in "Anchorman: The Legend Continues." Director Adam McKay announced on Facebook that the "Bridesmaids" star had joined the cast of the follow-up to the 2004 hit. "Kristen Wiig is officially on board for Anchorman 2," McKay wrote. "Couldn't be more excited." TheWrap first reported that Wiig was eyeing the project in December. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jessica Chastain has been learning the same lesson week after week for the last few months: Oscar season and Broadway don't exactly mix. Chastain is appearing on Broadway in "The Heiress," and she's also nominated for Best Actress for her role in "Zero Dark Thirty." For the last couple of months, she's been making regular trips to Los Angeles on her play's one dark day, Monday, to take care of movie chores, usually hopping on the last flight back that night so she wouldn't have to fly the day of the show. ...