PEOPLE WATCH

Power People: Entertainment Weekly magazine’s annual list of the 101 most influential people in Hollywood is out. Move over Michael Ovitz, this year’s No. 1 is cable titan John Malone, president of Tele-Communications Inc. Malone ranked 98 on the list last year. In second place, Gerald M. Levin, chairman and CEO of Time Warner. Ovitz, the Creative Artists Agency chairman who topped the list for the past two years, is still very powerful at No. 3. Sumner Redstone, the majority owner of Viacom Inc., and media mogul Rupert Murdoch round out the top five. The highest ranking woman on the list is Oprah Winfrey at No. 17. Last year’s most powerful woman, Madonna, didn’t even make this year’s list. Paramount’s chair Sherry Lansing, a newcomer to the list, is No. 27. The highest ranking movie star is Tom Cruise atNo. 18; Kevin Costner ranks No. 20. Other notables: the list’s first non-humans, Beavis and Butt-head, rank No. 76. Another non-human, Barney, comes in at 101.5. Human TV personalities on the roster include David Letterman at No. 28, Jerry Seinfeld at No. 81 and NBC’s Katie Couric at No. 101.

MOVIES

Box Office Demolition: “Demolition Man” froze out the box-office competition for the second weekend in a row, grossing nearly $10 million over the weekend, according to early industry estimates. The Warner Bros. film stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. “The Beverly Hillbillies,” 20th Century Fox’s big-screen version of the old TV series, opened in the No. 2 spot with $8.6 million. Disney’s “Cool Runnings” was third with $7.2 million, followed by “Malice,” from Castle Rock and Columbia, with $5.5 million. The newcomer from Universal, “Judgment Night,” came in fifth with $4 million. A box-office note: Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which opened in only two theaters nationwide over the weekend, set a record at Pacific’s El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. On Saturday, the Touchstone Pictures film took in $46,101 to break the record previously set in the theater by “Aladdin,” which took in $43,354 in one day. The movie goes into wider release on Friday.

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Polanski’s Next?: Director Roman Polanski reportedly wants Sharon Stone to star in a remake of Luis Bunuel’s “Belle de Jour,” a 1967 film that starred Catherine Deneuve. Polanski told the Milan daily Corriere della Sera over the weekend that he has spoken to Stone about the proposed project, but no work has begun yet.

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Screenwriters of the Future: The winners of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prestigious Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting have been selected. Victoria Jennings Arch of Sherman Oaks; Jodi Ann Johnson of Topanga; Bob Bridges of Arlington, Va.; Myron E. Goble of New York City; and Dawn O’Leary of Montclair, N.J., will each receive a $25,000 fellowship over the next year to help them complete new feature scripts. Their screenplays were chosen from 3,853 entries. The Don and Gee Nicholl awards were established in 1985 to encourage new screenwriters. This year’s winners will be honored at a Nov. 11 dinner at Chasen’s featuring writer-director Nora Ephron as keynote speaker.

STAGE

Angels Fly Out of London: The London production of the American musical “City of Angels,” the Cy Coleman/Larry Gelbart show that won a reprieve after an astonishing box-office turnaround in July, will close on Nov. 13. The show, the latest musical casualty of the recession in London, is now losing an estimated $30,000 a week, a spokesman said Sunday.

LEGAL FILE

Dangerfield Wins Ruling: Rodney Dangerfield is getting some respect from a federal court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the Star tabloid newspaper must identify its sources for a 1990 article that portrayed the comic as a drunk who ran amok in a Las Vegas hotel. The Star published a story that said Dangerfield drank, used drugs, wrecked a hotel room and chased a woman. Dangerfield sued, charging that the Star published the article despite knowing its quotes were false. A Los Angeles district court ruled against the paper in March. The publisher of the Star declined to comment on the recent ruling.

QUICK TAKES

“CBS This Morning” co-anchor Paula Zahn gave birth to a baby boy, Jared Brandon Cohen, Saturday morning. Zahn is married to Richard Cohen, a real estate investor. . . . Sets from “Weird Al” Yankovic’s claymation video of his new single “Jurassic Park,” which spoofs the movie, will be donated to L.A.’s Natural History Museum today at 9:30 a.m. in the museum’s Dinosaur Hall. . . . Actor Jeff Bridges is also a photographer--his first exhibition, which documents images from the sets of his movies, opened Sunday at the Gallery of Contemporary Photography in Santa Monica. . . . Nov. 5 is the date on which NBC will air “Hart to Hart Returns,” with Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers reprising their roles as millionaire sleuths Jonathan and Jennifer Hart.