Blake Lively heading to Dubai in January

Plus: SRK wants to get rid of commercial and art divide; Oscar winner Joan Fontaine dies; Cameron to shoot 3 Avatar sequels in New Zealand; Sony unveils Avengers-style expansion of Spider-Man.

Blake Lively will be in Dubai promoting Gucci Premiere perfume. Skip Bolen / Getty Images for H&M / AFP
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Blake Lively will make an appearance in the UAE next month. The 26-year-old actress, best known for her role in Gossip Girl, will be at Galeries Lafayette in The Dubai Mall on January 3 from 6pm. As the face of the fragrance Gucci Premiere, Lively will be promoting the new scent as part of the brand’s global tour. Lively’s appearance coincides with the opening of the Dubai Shopping Festival, which runs until February 2. Fans who want to have a picture taken with the actress while she’s in town should purchase a large bottle of Gucci Premiere on the day. It’s not yet confirmed whether Lively will be travelling to the UAE with her husband Ryan Reynolds.

SRK: get rid of commercial and art divide

Shah Rukh Khan says that to make Bollywood more appealing to international audiences, India's film industry needs to get rid of the divide between commercial and art films. "What we lack is collaboration. When I see international films, I see Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg come together and do a Tintin, which they have grown up with," Khan said at the NDTV Solution Summit, held in Mumbai on Saturday. "It became [a battle between] commercial and art, intellectual and stupid. How much of demarcation can you create? What happens is, you have a commercial filmmaker or a commercial actor who is presumed as not intellectual and if they want to do something arty, they are looked down upon as people who will corrupt their kind of cinema." – IANS

Oscar-winner Joan Fontaine dies

The actress Joan Fontaine died at the age of 96 on Sunday. Fontaine won an Academy Award for Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Suspicion (1941) and also starred in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Her other films included The Women, Jane Eyre and Born to Be Bad. Fontaine was the sister of the actress Olivia de Havilland. — AP

Cameron to shoot 3 Avatar sequels in New Zealand

James Cameron will be returning to New Zealand to film three sequels to 2009’s Avatar. The director made the announcement on Monday in the capital Wellington with the prime minister John Key. Cameron plans to shoot the three movies at one time, beginning in 2015, and release the first sequel in time for Christmas 2016 and the following sequels in 2017 and 2018. New Zealand’s government has agreed to a 25 per cent rebate for the films. – AP

Sony unveils Avengers-style expansion of Spider-Man

Sony Pictures Entertainment has announced an expansion of its Spider-Man franchise to include spin-offs and sequels, in a move to rival Disney's Marvel film world centred on The Avengers. Sony is already working on Amazing Spider-Man 3, due for release in 2016, following the first movie in the series in last year and a sequel due for release next year. On Friday, it announced two spin-off films, Venom and The Sinister Six, focusing on villains in the franchise. – AFP