I’ve been reading and re-reading the announcements today about Elizabeth Gabler taking her Fox 2000 staff to Sony Pictures. Everyone’s very happy because Gabler was a popular and smart leader at 20th Century Fox. She made very good movies. When Disney shut Fox2000 down, the movie world was very upset.

But did no one read the fine print? The new deal is being funded by Harper Collins Publishers, which is owned by News Corp, aka Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, who is the cleverest Machiavellian of all, will not go away. He’s also brilliant. So he’s taken a piece of his old company which Disney didn’t want, and he’s used it to invade another movie company. This could just be the beginning, too. There’s been talk of Sony Pictures being for sale for years. Could Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch have an eye on the whole prize?

The announcements say that Gabler will turn Harper Collins releases into movies. True, Fox 2000’s “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly was a Harper Collins/William Morrow release. And “The Hate U Give” was expanded from a book by the same name, also from Harper Collins.

But Harper Collins doesn’t have a better batting average of books into movies than any other big publisher. Indeed, Fox 200o’s movies came from all over publishing. “Breakthrough,” their Christian faith movie with “This is Us” star Chrissy Metz, was not from HC, but a Christian publisher. John Green, who’s had his young adult movies like “The Fault in our Stars” and “Paper Houses” with Fox 2000, is published by Dutton, not a part of Harper Collins but an imprint of Penguin-Random House.

And the ones from HC are not sure shots. Disney just pulled “The Woman in the Window” with Amy Adams from the 2019 release schedule because it wasn’t ready and needs a lot of retooling. And that’s from Harper Collins’ William Morrow label.

No, Harper Collins isn’t funding this deal for Gabler with Sony. It’s News Corp doing the funding. And it’s a slick way for Murdoch to come back into the movie business, through Sony’s back door. Sony’s Tom Rothman helped run Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox, so he knows his way around News Corp. What comes next should be pretty interesting.

The man who helped to invent cinema verite, DA Pennebaker, turns 94 years young today.

Pennebaker — Penny, as we call him — created the cameras, and the ideas, that led to anything we call documentary filmmaking today. An Oscar nominee with his filmmaker wife Chris Hegedus for “The War Room,” (1994) Penny received a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2013. His comrades in arms were Albert Maysles and Richard Leacock. With those guys and Bob Drew, Penny was invited into the JFK presidential campaign. They made four landmark films about JFK and Robert Kennedy, as well.

And yes, today we celebrate Penny– father of 8, grandfather of (who can count), mentor and friend to so many.

Penny’s great major film achievements came with Bob Dylan’s “Dont Look Back,” “Monterey Pop,” “The War Room,” and dozens more including the great Emmy nominated film about Elaine Stritch, “At Liberty,” for HBO. I was lucky to make a film with him and Chris in 2002 called “Only the Strong Survive.”

Right now on IFC you can see Seth Meyers and John Mulaney’s tribute to Penny, a parody of his famous film about Stephen Sondheim recording the cast of “Company” with Elaine Stritch. It’s in their “Documentary Now” series and it’s priceless.

Penny’s short film of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” taken from “Dont Look Back,” is the most copied, most revered, music video of all time.

Yes, the credits and accolades are endless. But today we just give a nod to the whole Pennebaker oeuvre. And blow out the candles with a wish for many good years to come!

There’s no business for show business like old business. The weekend box office was basically a disaster if your film wasn’t a sequel or repeating from last weekend.

“Spider Man: Far from Home” raked in another $45 million for a total of $275 million so far in two weeks of release.

“Toy Story 4”  wrapped four weeks of release with $365 million.

But new films suffered. “Stuber” took in $8 million. “Crawl” crawled to $12 million. The latter horror film, like all horror films, was made on the cheap so that’s okay. But “Stuber” was a miscalculated buddy film starring Dave Bautista from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and Kumail Nanjiani from “The Big Sick.” It may already be on airplanes.

“Stuber”‘s failure is worse because it’s from the now defunct 20th Century Fox. Disney — grooving on all its hits — just dumped “Stuber” into the abyss.

So the box office stinks but “The Lion King” roars next Friday. Regardless of critics’ carping, that movie will be a monster.

Two time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz has secretly been filming scenes for “Bond 25,” in London, reprising his evil Blofeld villain from “Spectre,” aka Bond 24.

This scoop was delivered by the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye exclusively, then immediately stolen by every outlet possible. Deadline.com was a real culprit. (I don’t understand why they always do that!)

But it was the estimable Baz who reported that Waltz was seen waltzing around Pinewood Studios. When he was spotted, Mr. W. put his finger to his lips and said, “You didn’t see me.” Well, Blofeld lost his eye in “Spectre” so maybe Waltz had a reason to believe he’d get away with it.

Donald Pleasance, Max von Sydow and Telly Savalas were the actors who previously played Blofeld in past Bond films. Each was memorable.

Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are certainly doubling down on villains for 25. They already have Oscar winner Rami Malek as their main bad guy, although no one knows who he plays or the course of his character. But now we’ve got two Oscar winners trying to bring down James Bond.

Of course, all I want to know is who is singing the opening song. I was first to report about Adele’s “Skyfall” several years ago. I didn’t much care for Sam Smith’s “Spectre” song even though it won the Oscar. Everyone wants Adele to return, but I hope it’s someone new– maybe Sting, or Annie Lennox, or even Chrissie Hynde. They are classics. The biggest mistake is bringing in a real newbie, like Billie Eilish. The Bond song is a big deal! Maybe Little Nas X can adapt “Old Town Road” for James!

Anyway, great scoop from Baz for the Daily Mail. We learn from the greats.