UR TV CAST

At least four-fifths of New Orleans is under water, in some places 10ft deep or more. At first the city seemed to have dodged the worst of the storm. But sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama may remain virtual ghost lands for weeks or longer, populated by expanses of debris, downed trees and crumpled homes.

Nowhere is more stricken than New Orleans, most of which lies below sea level. Yesterday Katrina’s remnants brought drenching rains, high winds and killer tornados to a swath of the central US as the system moved to the north-east. A semi-submerged New Orleans had in effect ceased to function last night, as America struggled to come to grips with the devastating onslaught of Hurricane Katrina. The storm has probably killed hundreds of people, and laid waste a 150-mile stretch of the US central Gulf coastline in what may be the greatest national disaster in modern US history. Those stipulations have become the stuff of many of the lawsuits, including Mr Zaentz’s.

His name and that of Miramax are on the credits (and in the Oscar nominations) but they were not involved in production.But quite how the $168m figure, almost enough to make the trilogy again, was reached remains unknown.. But Miramax was forced to let go of the project after Disney, its parent company, said no because of the the anticipated high cost.So Miramax stuck on legal stipulations and allowed it to be shopped around. His acquisition of J R R Tolkein’s trilogy led to an unsuccessful cartoon version of the first of the three books in 1978, after which film industry believed the Rings cycle was nearly unfilmable.The idea was revived in the mid-1990s, when Mr Jackson approached Miramax films for seed funds. They have sued New Line claiming they have been short-changed on their share of revenue from home video, merchandising and video games related to the film.Mr Zaentz is a revered figure in Hollywood, responsible for relatively few films although almost every one has been wildly successful, everything from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976, to Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1995). It took almost $3bn in global box-office receipts and is still raking in profits, thanks to DVD sales and other secondary marketing opportunities.New Line Cinema feels it is entitled to the lion’s share of the profits because it took the biggest risk, committing to all three films ahead of time and putting $180m up front at a time when fantasy was as unfashionable a genre as light opera.But that aggrieved many involved, including Peter Jackson, the director, and his producer-wife Fran Walsh. Variety reported yesterday that Mr Zaentz, who had nothing ultimately to do with Peter Jackson’s wildly successful movie trilogy, had been paid a thumping $168m (£94m) by New Line Cinema as part of a settlement designed to ward off a full-blown jury trial, which would otherwise have started last month.
It was, the entertainment newspaper said, the biggest payday earned by a producer for a film or series of films he did not even produce.The settlement, which may ultimately involve further compensation for Mr Zaentz because of a secondary dispute over royalty payment calculations, was the latest twist in an increasingly ugly battle over the spoils from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Saul Zaentz, the veteran Hollywood producer, has proved the old adage that good things come to those who wait, finally hitting paydirt almost 30 years after first acquiring the film rights to a certain cult fantasy novel called The Lord of the Rings.

“That would be the best thing to calm our spirits and thank our Lord that we are survivors,” she said “Slowly, gradually, we will recover We will survive, we will rebuild.”. “There’s virtually not a building here in Gulfport that’s not substantially damaged.”Governor Blanco asked residents to spend today in prayer. “The damage is catastrophic and widespread,” Jim Pollard, a Fema spokesman in Harrison County, Mississippi, said. Many communities have no electricity, no water and no means of communication.

Last night, they were considering how this could be done safely without compromising security.Officials along the 150-mile stretch of the Gulf Coast affected by the hurricane were all warning that there would be no quick fix. “Nobody named one Katrina yet,” said a clinic spokeswoman, Katherine Voss.Officials will also have to move around 5,000 prison inmates from New Orleans. We are trying to take in only patients with life-threatening illnesses,” Dr Joe Guarisco, director of the emergency department, said.Yesterday, that included two near-fatal electrocutions of people who tried to return to flooded areas, and others who were injured by flying glass when wind and water smashed their shelters Several women in the hospital gave birth during the ordeal Each baby was announced with a tune over the loudspeaker. Officials warned that rising flood-waters were threatening the emergency back-up generators the hospitals were using after their mains power failed.One of the few hospitals still taking patients was the Ochsner Clinic, situated a relatively lofty eight feet above sea level “We don’t have unlimited capacity. Mr Lokey said recovery will take so long that some workers could spend their entire career working on the damage caused by Katrina. “This is the most significant natural disaster to hit the United States,” he said.Officials are also in the process of organising the evacuation of around 2,500 patients from seven hospitals in the city. There’s water lapping at the foot of the Superdome now.”The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said it was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, or so-called floating dormitories, boats the agency normally uses to house its own employees, said its co-ordinating director, Bill Lokey.