Tuesday morning headlines

Animation swoon: Just as some had predicted last spring, the glut of animated movies is taking its toll. The NYT reports that some are failing to meet expectations or flopping outright. Among the disappointments: Disney's "The Wild," which brought in just $37 million, and Warner Bros.'s "The Ant Bully" ($27 million).

Hollywood hedging: Maybe Tom Cruise had the right idea in going after hedge funds. Paramount and investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort have formed a $300 million production fund to make 30 movies. It's the second slate deal between the studio and the investment bank. The previous one gave the world "Jackass: Number Two" and "Nacho Libre." By the way, whatever happened to Cruise's hedge deal?

Bad timing: How do those new reality shows about buying and selling houses attract audiences at a time when the real estate market is slowing down? There's talk about rethinking the formats for shows like "Million Dollar Listing," although the president of Bravo, which airs the show, says there are still interesting stories to tell. Especially vulnerable is HGTV, which bases much of its schedule on home-related shows.

Housing costs: The Florence-Graham section of southeastern L.A. County saw the nation's biggest increase in homeowner spending from 2000 to 2005, according to Census numbers - 43 percent of homeowner income, from 17 percent. Meanwhile, Temecula had 74 percent of its renters shelling out at least 30 percent.

Golden West deal done: The $25.5 billion purchase of the World Savings parent by Wachovia Corp. has closed. The 123 World Savings branches in California will be renamed Wachovia by the fourth quarter of 07. Analysts have expressed some skepticism about the deal, considering Golden West's large portfolio of adjustible rate mortgages. Wachovia says it's all good.

Jeans pullback: The long-awaited denim slowdown might finally be happening. Sales are down 1 percent to $4.3 billion so far this year, according to the NPD Group. Premium denim was only category to show growth in the January-August period - and even that sector seems to be cooling.

It's time for baseball: And nervousness over at Fox. Of the eight teams in the playoffs, only the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees offer the network any hope for strong ratings. The games provide an important platform to promote the Fox schedule, and if the World Series turns out to be Minnesota and San Diego... well, you get the idea. By the way, a Met-Yankee subway series is not an attractive ratings matchup; as noted by the WSJ, when those teams met in 2000, the rest of the country yawned.

Gas prices keep dropping: The fed's weekly survey put the average price of unleaded regular in L.A. at $2.69 a gallon, 56 cents a gallon less than just two weeks ago. LAT reports that refiners are trimming their profit margins, which has gasoline tracker Charles Langley suspecting that election-year politics may be at play. An industry rep denies such a connection.

Lacter on KPCC: Today's business chat with Steve Julian (6:55 and 9:55) covers the state of the stock market, downtown homeless encampments and big audiences for the new TV season.