Morning Report / ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS

TV & MOVIES

‘Sixth Sense’ for Earning Money: “The Sixth Sense” writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has landed a reported record screenplay deal of almost $5 million for his latest work, “Unbreakable,” a supernatural-tinged drama set in Philadelphia. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are expected to star in the Disney movie. The most previously paid for a screenplay was $4 million to Shane Black for “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” Shyamalan, 29, reportedly will also receive another $5 million to direct the film, which Disney plans to release for Thanksgiving 2000. “The Sixth Sense,” for which Shyamalan reportedly received a total of about $3 million, was the summer’s biggest hit and has already grossed nearly $250 million in North America.

KCBS Changes: The future of KCBS-TV anchors Tritia Toyota and Paul Dandridge was up in the air Monday after the two were removed from the station’s morning newscast. John Overall and Sophia Choi replaced Toyota and Dandridge on Monday and will continue as morning anchors. News director Roger Bell said he and the station’s new management “wanted to make a change,” but declined further details. He said the station was talking with Toyota and Dandridge, who last month were also relieved of their noon anchor slots, about their “future roles. We would like them both to be with us, but nothing has been solidified yet.”

BET Criticism: ABC star D.L. Hughley (“The Hughleys”) blasts cable’s Black Entertainment Television in the current issue of Newsweek, saying that the company is “mistreating black people” by giving them unfavorable contracts, knowing that few jobs are available elsewhere for African Americans in the television business. “If a mainstream company were treating black people the way BET has and is, it would’ve been a big mess long before now,” says Hughley, who also alleges that BET discourages its talent from bringing attorneys to contract negotiations, a claim that the network wouldn’t comment on. Newsweek, which calls BET “the only game in town,” says similar criticisms have come from other current and former BET employees. Robert Johnson, the $1.5-billion network’s owner and founder, responds: “Black talent compares itself to white talent, but that’s the wrong comparison because the advertising and support isn’t there for African Americans to make that type of money.”

OPERA

From L.A. to Pittsburgh: The Pittsburgh Opera has announced new artistic leaders, both of whom have considerable Los Angeles ties. Christopher Hahn, L.A. Opera’s artistic administrator, is leaving to become Pittsburgh Opera’s artistic director. And John Mauceri, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra’s principal conductor, has been named Pittsburgh Opera’s music director and principal conductor. The appointments are effective on July 1, 2000, but because of Mauceri’s Bowl schedule and other commitments, his first Pittsburgh production won’t be until October 2001.

QUICK TAKES

Tony Danza will star as the title character in Reprise! Broadway’s Best in Concert’s production of “Fiorello!,” a musical celebration of flamboyant former New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Nov. 10-22 at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse.” . . . The Star tabloid has agreed to donate an undisclosed sum to charity as part of a settlement with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman over a March story that claimed they had to hire a sex therapist to help them film sex scenes in “Eyes Wide Shut.” The couple’s attorney said that the magazine is running a retraction in its current issue. . . . “Xena” star Lucy Lawless and husband Rob Tapert, the syndicated TV show’s executive producer, have a new baby warrior, 8-pound, 13-ounce Julius Robert Bay Tapert, born Saturday morning in New Zealand.