ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

TELEVISION

O’Reilly Fending Off Conservative Critics

Though he eschews the label himself, Bill O’Reilly has ridden to fame for views that appeal to conservative viewers of Fox News Channel, where his show “The O’Reilly Factor” airs. So some of them were caught by surprise--and angered--when he gave an interview to the gay-themed magazine the Advocate supporting gay rights and recommending that “fanatical” anti-gay activists be ignored.

Postings on an Internet Web site operated by Concerned Women for America, for example, suggested O’Reilly was confused on the issue and was an example “of the American Christian who does not know what God’s word said.”

O’Reilly used his show Thursday night as a platform to respond to the critics.

“My stance is simple,” he said. “We’re all Americans here. Nobody should be discriminated against. I’ll leave it to God to figure out who’s going to hell and who isn’t. I’m not qualified, and nobody else on Earth is either.”

More Americans Sit in Front of the Tube

The national TV audience will grow again next week, as Nielsen Media Research issues revised population estimates for the 2002-03 television season.

The pool of U.S. viewers, age 2 and over, is now pegged at 272 million, up slightly more than 2 million (or less than 1%) compared to the previous TV season. The number of households with television also rose, to 106.7 million from 105.5 million. Each rating point represents 1% of that total.

Nielsen revises its estimates annually based on research and census data. Population growth over the years has helped offset steady losses by the major networks in terms of the percentage of viewers they reach.

THE ARTS

Another Guggenheim on Gehry’s Project List?

First New York City and Venice. Then Berlin and Bilbao. Can another Guggenheim be far behind?

Frank O. Gehry & Associates, the Los Angeles-based firm behind the Bilbao project, has been approached to build a similar site near the Leath docks in Edinburgh, Scotland. A representative of the firm told the newspaper the Scotsman that the area “was appropriate if a Guggenheim were to be established in the U.K.”

The site of the proposed Guggenheim--a 200,000-square-foot area similar in size to Bilbao’s--is owned by Forth Ports, whose property director, Terry Smith, indicated interest in the plan.

The Guggenheim, with permanent homes in New York and Venice, began to expand in 1992 with the restoration of its Frank Lloyd Wright building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the opening of a new branch, now closed, farther downtown. Realists point out that the Edinburgh proposal is far from a fait accompli. A lot of cities are wooing the Guggenheim, they point out, and the museum’s financial fortunes are sagging.

Cambodian Treasures Uncovered by Workmen

Cambodian workmen, restoring a pagoda destroyed by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, have discovered 27 solid gold Buddha statuettes buried for hundreds of years under the structure’s foundation in the jungles near Phnom Penh. Construction work came to a stop when they retrieved the pieces, each about 4 inches tall.

The find is stirring up controversy between locals who want the statues to be placed in a special shrine inside the pagoda and government officials who want them in a museum. Monks and nuns celebrated the find with three days and two nights of religious celebration.

Another find that also made the headlines: Two 2,000-year-old bells were also retrieved in the Phnom Penh region and sent to Cambodia’s National Museum for restoration and safekeeping. Made about 300 BC, they were originally thought to be unexploded artillery shells or bombs--and were very carefully unearthed.

MOVIES

Local Firm Building Montreal Studio

So much for Gov. Gray Davis’ proposed financial incentives to keep film production at home. A Los Angeles firm has announced plans to build a $40-million studio near Montreal for big-budget pictures.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, WonderWorks Entertainment--a provider of film sets and special effects for studios such as LucasFilm, Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal--and its associated production company, Avondale Pictures, plan to start constructing a 4 million-square-foot facility in April. In addition to 210,000 square feet of sound stage, it will have pre-and post-production capacities.

The infrastructure of the Montreal film industry, the low Canadian dollar and financial incentives from the Quebec government were the reasons for locating in that city, said Wonderworks president John Palmer.

QUICK TAKES

Tim Burton, who directed the films “Batman” and “Batman Returns,” is now attached to the Broadway-bound “Batman: The Musical,” which is planning an out-of-town tryout in 2004, according to the New York Post. Warner Bros. is said to be set to produce the project.... TBS has given the title role in “America’s Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story” to up-and-coming actor Kristoffer Polaha (“Petty Crimes”). Daryl Hannah will be played by Tara Chocol, who has appeared on HBO’s “Sex and the City.” ... Columbia Pictures is embarking on an English-language remake of the Oscar-nominated Argentine film “Son of the Bride,” the tale of a man who grapples with his past. Adam Sandler will star.