Wednesday morning headlines

Happy New Year! Here's wishing everyone a healthy and fulfilling 2008.

Bad start for economy: The Dow is already down more than 170 points this morning as a new report shows that factory activity unexpectedly contracted in December to its weakest level since April 2003. This will be a busy week for economic reports, but the one to really watch comes out at 5:30 a.m. on Friday. That's when the government issues its job report for December (state and county numbers will be out later this month). (Bloomberg)

Top underwriters of 2007: They may have taken multi-billion dollar writeoffs and ousted their CEOs, but Citigroup and Merrill Lynch were the world’s top underwriters of stocks and bonds last year, as measured by volume and reported fees. Citigroup wins on volume and Merrill by fees. Overall debt and equity underwriting fell for the first time in five years, no doubt reflecting the credit woes in 2007. (Reuters)

Late-night is back: Letterman returns with his writers and Leno returns without. Letterman has Robin Williams and Leno has Mike Huckabee. Letterman will likely have the better show, but Leno will probably pull in good numbers (his regular audience, plus anyone curious about how he'll fare without writers). NBC's Conan O'Brien and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel will also be back. (Bloomberg)

Modest movie gains: The box office was up 4 percent from a year ago, to $9.7 billion, but attendance was flat (after a narrow increase in 2006 and three previous years of sharp declines). The top-grossing film was "Spider-Man 3," followed by "Shrek the Third." And, not surprisingly, nine of the Top 10 grossing films were science fiction, fantasy or animation. From the NYT:

“There were some great films, but the appetite wasn’t there,” he said. Movies rooted in the Iraq war or terrorism — “In the Valley of Elah,” “Rendition,” “Redacted” — particularly struggled. A glut of serious-minded awards hopefuls canceled one another out. Signs of trouble lurked even during the blockbuster-packed summer, in which ticket sales surpassed the $4 billion mark for the first time. Sequels, with the notable exception of “Bourne,” the third in a series, were generally not well reviewed and sold fewer tickets than their second or first installments.

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Stars did not seem to interest moviegoers, with marquee names playing to empty seats. Angelina Jolie flopped with “A Mighty Heart,” about the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and Nicole Kidman’s career grew chillier with the North American collapse of “The Golden Compass.” Among the men, Tom Cruise struggled to avoid blame for a dead-on-arrival “Lions for Lambs,” and Brad Pitt drew shrugs for “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” One big exception: Will Smith cemented his status as a top box office draw — and perhaps the biggest star in the business today — with robust results for “I am Legend,” a Warner Brothers release about a man wandering a post-apocalyptic Manhattan.

Broadcom scores: A federal judge has granted the Irvine-based chip maker's request for a permanent injunction against Qualcomm products at issue in a patent battle. But the judge added a "sunset provision" that allows Qualcomm to keep selling the chips through January 2009 if it pays royalties to Broadcom. Broadcom accused Qualcomm of infringing three patents, and a jury ruled in Broadcom's favor (though the judge reversed the jury finding that the company had willfully infringed the patents). (WSJ)

Pellicano to represent himself?: Now that should be interesting. His motion came on the same day that a federal judge refused to suppress evidence in the government case. The Hollywood private eye will soon go to trial for illegally wiretapping celebrities. (AP)

Return of Susan Lyne?: The CEO of Martha Stewart Living might be headed out the door, according to the NY Post's Keith Kelly and Silicon Alley Insider speculates that one possible landing place is Hollywood. You might recall that she had been developing "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" right before being dumped in 2004 as president of ABC Entertainment.

Ports are a wild card: There are lots of potential trouble spots in 2008, including new environmental initiatives (might retailers and shippers challenge some of them in court?), contract talks between shippers and longshoremen (the current pact expires July 1), and a $35 tax on each twenty-foot-equivalent container moved in or out by diesel truck. The fee will subsidize the replacement of nearly 17,000 diesel trucks working the harbor. (Press-Telegram)