Tim Burton's `Nightmare' in 3-D ... `Shrek' for sale?

- This is the first digital 3-D release I'm really excited about: `Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas,' opening October 20th from Disney. The Hollywood Reporter says that Industrial Light & Magic will be doing the dimensionalization, as it did with last year's `Chicken Little.'

- The LA Times says that DreamWorks Animation could follow Pixar's lead and be snapped up by a studio. Lorena Muñoz writes:

"Anytime you have a franchise like 'Shrek,' it is always of interest to a major media company," said Anthony Valencia, media and entertainment analyst for TCW Group, a major Pixar shareholder based in Los Angeles. "Any media conglomerate wants to have the same arrows in their quiver that their competitors do. Down the line, a company that feels they don't have a presence in animation may feel uneasy about that vis a vis Disney."

When Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures Corp. acquired live action studio DreamWorks SKG late last year, it became a logical suitor for DreamWorks Animation. Already it has agreed to distribute DreamWorks Animation's movies that use computer generated imaging.