X17 Industry Wrap

Avatar has spent four weeks atop the box office and this weekend's other openers will likely not be much competition -- Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli and Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door will be the strongest contenders.

If Avatar wins this week, it will be the first film to top rankings five weeks in a row since M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense in 1999.

Cameron's up against his own Titanic record -- a $1.84 billion worldwide take for the film in 1998.

George Clooney's Hope for Haiti telethon will air on the 22nd, the following Friday.

Instead, it will be announced during the NBC telecast from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will make a $100,000 donation to Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti relief fund for victims of the earthquake.

Moelis & Co. is the consulting firm hired by the studio to identify companies interested in acquiring all or part of MGM. The company has not called the process an auction but there are nearly 150 lenders holding $3.7 billion in debt for the studio, who are pushing for its sale.

Fox won't make an offer, due to strict non-disclosure rules that require potential buyers to sign off on confidentiality agreements require for access to a virtual data room. Warner Bros., Lionsgate, AT&T, and Summit Entertainment will bid.

Offers of around $1 billion and above are expected though insiders don't expect the price to go over $2 billion.