Los Angeles  - Chris Weitz, director of About a Boy and The Golden Compass, was named Monday as the director of New Moon, the sequel to the hit movie Twilight.

The movie is scheduled for release in November 2009, according to a statement by the film's producer Summit Entertainment.

The director of Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke, left the production last week, apparently because she felt unable to complete the sequel on the strict timetable needed to meet the November 2009 release date.

New York  - In the largest-ever divorce payment from a wife to her ex-husband, Madonna will pay Guy Ritchie at least 76 million dollars, her spokeswoman in New York said Monday.

The couple still has to settle custody arrangements for their children Rocco, 8, and David, 3. But the deal gives film director Ritchie the couple's English country estate, west London pub and a reported cash settlement of 53 million dollars, Madonna's representative Liz Rozenberg told the New York Daily News.

Los Angeles  - The American Film Institute has named its top 10 US movies of the year, including critical favourites like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Wall-E and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

But it snubbed other movies considered top contenders for the Oscars like Doubt, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Visitor. Slumdog Millionaire, frequently mentioned as an awards season contender, wasn't cited because it is a foreign production.

Berlin  - Horst Tappert, the actor who played a stubborn police detective in the long-running German television series Derrick, has died at the age of 85.

His wife, Ursula, said Tappert, who had lived in seclusion in recent years, died in a Munich hospital on Saturday. He had been well until a few days earlier. She declined to describe his illness.

Tappert's jowly, thick-lipped face personified senior inspector Stephan Derrick, the compassionate cop who seemed to have seen every facet of evil in his long career.

Melbourne, Dec 15 : The asking price for an island owned by Aussie pop princess Kylie Minogue and her family has been reduced after the original price did not attract buyers.

The island, Beauciel, on Victoria''s French Island, has been put up or sale since February, and it had received some offers but not what Minogue and her family, who are co-owners, wanted.

The original asking price of 1.2 million dollars has now been dropped to between 950,000 dollars to 1,050,000 dollars, reports News. com. au.