NEWSMAKERS

July 22, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

NEWSMAKERS

Gibson’s ex target of extortion probe

LOS ANGELES

Sheriff’s detectives in Los Angeles are checking extortion allegations against Mel Gibson’s ex-girlfriend. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore says the agency is looking into whether Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva may have tried to extort the Academy Award-winner. He declined to offer any other details on the inquiry.

Detectives earlier this month interviewed Grigorieva after she claimed Gibson abused her during an incident in January. Gibson and Grigorieva are locked in a bitter custody dispute over their infant daughter. No arrests have been made, and neither has been charged with any crimes.

Lohan will disappear from the public eye

LOS ANGELES

Lindsay Lohan’s time in jail will be short, but her time away from the public eye will be much longer. Sheriff’s officials say the actress will spend about two weeks of a 90-day sentence in jail. But her brief time in an isolation cell is just one element of a sentence that is designed to punish and rehabilitate the star.

Once Lohan is released in early August, she will be required to report to probation officials within a day. She also has been ordered to spend three months at an inpatient rehab.

The result is that the “Mean Girls” and “Georgia Rules” star will be unavailable until late this year to start filming her portrayal of porn actress Linda Lovelace in a biopic. She will be equally unavailable to promote her role as a gun-toting nun in Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete,” which marks her return to the big screen in September. It amounts to lost time for the once-promising actress, whose movements have been restricted since she missed a court date in May. It remains to be seen whether Lohan can replicate a post-jail rebound.

‘Last Airbender’ sequel set for 2011

LOS ANGELES

A sequel to Nickelodeon’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is in the works. The channel said Wednesday the new animated TV series will premiere in 2011. It has the working title, “The Legend of Korra.”

Nickelodeon says the series will build on the “mythology” of the original “The Last Airbender” series, which inspired this summer’s live-action movie from filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.

The “Legend of Korra” is from the creator-producers of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” Nickelodeon executive Brown Johnson says the new series will focus on the teenage-girl avatar Korra. Brown describes her as hotheaded, independent and “ready to take on the world.”

Carreras returns to La Scala Oct. 10

MILAN

La Scala says the Spanish tenor Jose Carreras will sing at the famed Milanese opera house for the first time in 14 years for a benefit concert later this year. La Scala said Wednesday the Oct. 10 concert is being sponsored by the European Society for Medical Oncology, which will have its annual meeting in Milan.

Carreras started a foundation to fight leukemia in 1988, a year after being struck by the disease. He spent 11 months in the hospital. Carreras last appeared at La Scala in 1996 in Giordano’s “Fedora.”

Hotel: Film crew walked out on bill

PONTIAC, Mich.

A luxurious suburban Detroit hotel says it was stiffed by a film company that left town without paying nearly $37,000 in food, lodging and services. A lawsuit filed in Oakland County Circuit Court by the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham claims it provided Little Murder Productions and Arizona-based Mind in Motion Entertainment with an open account last year when the independent-film production crew was filming “Little Murder,” a thriller set in New Orleans, post-Hurricane Katrina.

Among those named in the suit are actor Cary Elwes and Tim Gendreau, Mind in Motion president.