NEW YORK, N.Y. - Brad Pitt wanted to build a better blockbuster.

During the years Hollywood shifted toward increasingly bigger spectacles and superhero tentpoles, one of the movies' biggest stars largely stayed on the sidelines, focusing instead on ambitious ensembles ("The Tree of Life," ''Inglourious Basterds") and unlikely dramas ("Moneyball").

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Following crowd-funding campaigns from "Veronica Mars" and Zach Braff, James Franco is trying to raise $500,000 to bankroll a trilogy of movies.

NEW DELHI - Health officials in Mumbai are investigating reports that Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and his wife know the sex of a baby they are having through a surrogate mother.

Sex determination tests are banned in India to stop the practice of aborting female fetuses due to a preference for sons.

Press Trust of India reports Khan was not at home when municipal authorities tried to question him about reports that the woman had such a test.

In Pixar's "Monsters University," a prequel to 2001 "Monsters, Inc.," our expert "scarers" to be — the wisecracking pipsqueak Mike Wazowski and the burly James B. Sullivan — are college freshmen with high aspirations.

Pixar, too, knows something about expectations. Thanks to the gentle poetry of "Up," the cosmic romance of "WALL-E" and the unlikely artist portrait of "Ratatouille" (not to mention others), the mantle is high for Pixar, a paragon of pop culture.

"Man of Steel" leaped over box office expectations in a single weekend.

The Warner Bros. superhero film earned $113 million in its opening weekend at the box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Superman tale starring Henry Cavill and Amy Adams earned an additional $12 million from Thursday screenings, bringing its total to $125 million. Original expectations for the film ranged from $75 million to $130 million.

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon inspector general's report says U.S. special operations forces who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden were in uniform and wearing nametags during a CIA award ceremony attended by the writer of the film "Zero Dark Thirty."

The report released Friday omits a number of revelations disclosed in a draft of the report that was made public more than a week ago. One omission: that then-CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed the name of the raid commander during his speech at the 2011 event.

LONDON - Adele is getting a new medal to go alongside her Grammys and Academy Award — an honour from Queen Elizabeth II.

The "Rumor Has It" and "Skyfall" singer was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire, or MBE, on Friday in the queen's annual Birthday Honors list.

Her award, for services to music, caps 12 months in which the 25-year-old singer won an Oscar for her James Bond theme song and gave birth to her first child.

PARIS - Actress Scarlett Johansson is suing a French publishing house over a novel that uses her name and image and explores the challenges of being beautiful.

The JC Lattes publishing house said Friday that a lawsuit was filed last week about Gregoire Delacourt's book "The First Thing We Look At."

JC Lattes spokeswoman Emmanuelle Allibert says the publisher's lawyers are preparing to respond to the court, which will then decide whether to take up the case.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Laura Poitras' skill and boldness as a documentary filmmaker have gained her Oscar and Emmy nominations, Sundance Film Festival honours and a public TV showcase, even if her work fell short of making a "Super Size Me" splash.

But her role as the first point of contact for disclosures about U.S. surveillance programs has drawn the glare of attention to the independent filmmaker who, abruptly, has pushed documentaries deeper into the realm of journalistic immediacy.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - A jury should decide whether the sheriff's deputy who arrested Mel Gibson for drunken driving suffered workplace discrimination, a judge ruled Thursday despite expressing serious concerns about whether the man can win his case.

Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper said James Mee should be allowed to argue to jurors that he suffered discrimination and a hostile work environment after arresting Gibson in Malibu in 2006.