The beachside drama - billed as the world's most popular TV show - spent several months filming in Avalon last year.

Now producers are planning to return for good, leaving the area deeply divided.

The suburb's surf club and other businesses are in favour of the show moving down under - but many locals aren't.

Locals are divided over becoming the new home for Baywatch

"Avalon was once a hamlet - now it's a busy village. It's changing rapidly as it is - we don't need Baywatch to take over our beach and turn us into an international gawker's zone," protester Alex McTaggart told the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Baywatch producers banned locals from part of the beach during filming and did not allow them to use the showers in the lifesaving club.

Producers also breached filming conditions by blowing up a yacht, according to the show's opponents.

But pro-Baywatch locals insist they are speaking for the majority - and the local chamber of commerce is backing the plan.

A decision on moving Baywatch is due by the end of the month.

Lee back in court

Tommy Lee: Reportedly seen out with Motley Crue bandmates

Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee will have to appear in court in February to answer allegations he has violated his probation conditions by drinking alcohol.

Lee is on probation after spending a six month jail sentence for attacking his former wife Pamela Anderson during a fight in February 1998.

Municipal Court Judge Lawrence Mira ordered a hearing in Malibu, California for 4 February after recent media reports had been brought to his attention.

The prosecutor's office said Lee had apparently been drinking with his bandmates in Florida.

Hunt and Hanks are Cast Away

Helen Hunt: Teaming up with Tom Hanks

Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt has been signed to play Tom Hanks's fed-up girlfriend in Cast Away, about a man's struggle to survive on a desert island.

Hunt, 35, will have to split a few days of filming over several months in order to allow Hanks to lose 40lb in weight to portray the skeletal castaway.

Filming of Cast Away, to be directed by Robert Zemeckis, will begin later this month in Moscow's Red Square, before moving to Nashville, then Fiji and Los Angeles.

Bergman back in Stockholm

Ingmar Bergman: Back with new play

Swedish stage and screen legend Ingmar Bergman is to make a comeback directing a play in Stockholm.

The opening night for his working of August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata at The Royal Dramatic Theatre is planned for around the turn of the millennium.

Bergman - who has directed around 50 films - recently said "only an irresistible combination of play and actors could make me reconsider my retirement."

Hurley's haunted house

Liz Hurley: Set for horror re-make

Actress Elizabeth Hurley is negotiating to co-star alongside Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush in a remake of the 1958 horror movie, The House on Haunted Hill.

Shooting for the film, in which five strangers are offered $1m each to spend a night in a house with a hideous past, begins in LA later this month.

In true Hollywood style, the similarly-titled The Haunting of Hill House, starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson, is going into production soon.

Oscar goes to court?

Not a Belgian trade award

Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is reported to be suing the Belgian government for calling its annual export prizes "Oscars".

The Academy said it was taking the Belgians to court for infringement of trademarks and service marks.

It said it resorted to legal action after sending the Belgian Office for Foreign Trade three letters asking it to stop using the name of the famed film awards for its "Oscar for Export" prize.

Dannii comes out as a republican

Aussie pop star Dannii Minogue lives in Britain for most of the year - but she says she thinks it is time for Australia to ditch the Queen and became a republic.

"It's time we reaped the rewards of our unique identity. Becoming a republic is a step in the right direction," said the singer during a stop in Sydney to promote her single Everlasting Night.