Sci-fi and action filmmaker J.J. Abrams has been tapped to direct a seventh "Star Wars" movie expected to be released by Disney in 2015, a Hollywood trade publication reported Thursday.

After purchasing "Star Wars" creator George Lucas's Lucasfilm for $4 billion in October, Disney announced it was planning a new trilogy in the wildly popular sci-fi saga, which has raked in an estimated $4.4 billion since 1977.

News that the global music industry has finally turned the corner and is on the road to recovery should help get the annual four-day gathering of many of the world's top music execs at the MIDEM trade fair that opens here Saturday off to a good start.

"I believe we can now say that the music industry globally is on the road to recovery and heading for growth for the first time since 1999," Frances Moore, CEO of the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), the body that represents the interests of the international recording industry, told Agence France Presse.

Hollywood star Natalie Portman is swapping New York for Paris along with her French husband Benjamin Millepied after he secured the post of dance director at the French capital's Opera.

Millepied, a dancer and choreographer best known for a role alongside Portman in the film "Black Swan", was named as the replacement for Brigitte Lefevre on Thursday.

If his words were bullets, Ahmed el-Khalaf would have already brought down President Bashar Assad to end the bloodshed tearing apart his family's homeland of Syria.

But for now, this 23-year-old has to make do with setting the revolution to his own rap music, putting his indignation into stanzas slamming international inaction and calling for Assad's ouster -- his message to the world.

Haute couture, fashion's most luxurious appellation, can only ever come from Paris.

One thing couture week's third and final day proved, however, is that despite these geographical limits, Paris punches high above its weight creatively, attracting designers the world over and evoking every culture under the sun.

"Mad Men" will return to U.S. television for a sixth season on April 7 with a special two-hour premiere written by its creator Matthew Weiner, the AMC cable channel said Wednesday.

In a statement, AMC said the multiple Emmy award-winning series centered on a New York advertising agency in the 1960s will again feature original cast members Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery and Christina Hendricks.

Beyonce did not sing the U.S. national anthem live at this week's public swearing-in ceremony of President Barack Obama for his second term, CNN quoted an inaugural official as saying Wednesday.

The R&B singer has yet to comment on the furor over whether or not she lip-synced the words on Monday to "The Star-Spangled Banner" before an estimated crowd of one million people on the National Mall in Washington.

Chely Wright, the first major American country music star to come out publicly as gay, said Wednesday she and her same-sex spouse are expecting twins this summer.

"They're due in July, but with identical twins you typically have to deliver a month early," said Wright alongside wife Lauren Blitzer-Wright in a web chat with her publicist Howard Bragman.

French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, best known for a role alongside his future wife Natalie Portman in the film "Black Swan", was Thursday named dance director at the Paris Opera.

The 35-year-old, who began his career at the New York City Ballet where he quickly rose to become a principal dancer in 2002, will replace Brigitte Lefevre at the prestigious Paris establishment in October 2014, the opera said.

Grammy-winning British songstress Adele is to perform the Oscar-nominated theme song from 007 blockbuster "Skyfall" at next month's Academy Awards show, organizers said Wednesday.

The performance will be the first time she has sung the song live, and her first U.S. television appearance since last year's Grammys. The tune is nominated for Best Original Song at the February 24 event.