NFL & NBC SPORTS LAUNCH "BACK TO FOOTBALL" PROMOTION FEATURING HARRY CONNICK, JR. Campaign Launched Last Night During Hall of Fame Game on NBC NEW YORK – August 9, 2010 – The National Football League and NBC Sports have teamed up on a "Back to Football" promotional campaign geared towards NFL Kickoff 2010. This year's campaign features Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Harry Connick, Jr., a New Orleans native and big Saints fan. The NFL season kicks off on NBC Sports on Thursday, September 9 when the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints host the Minnesota Vikings in a rematch of last season's NFC Championship overtime thriller. The campaign, another of a series of promotional collaborations between the NFL and NBC Sports, features Connick singing his re-recording of the classic Frank Sinatra song, "High Hopes," and Connick narrating the story of the Saints first Super Bowl victory, the impact it had on the city of New Orleans and the "High Hopes" the city has for its football team this year. In past years, the NFL and NBC Sports worked together on numerous NFL Kickoff campaigns including the Peyton Manning/Reggie Bush practical joke campaign and the Manning Brothers Summer Fun campaign. The NFL and NBC Sports crews recorded Connick at the Neil Simon Theater in New York at the end of July in addition to shooting in multiple locations in New Orleans, including on the legendary Bourbon St., as well as at a location provided by the New Orleans chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a cause very close to Connick. The New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, working with Connick and musician Branford Marsalis devised the Musicians' Village in New Orleans in 2005 to help restore New Orleans' musical heritage. The Musician's Village includes homes built by Habitat for Humanity to provide musicians the opportunity to buy affordable housing.

A source close to the talks tells EW that Harry Connick Jr., Shania Twain, Chris Isaak, Justin Timberlake, and Jessica Simpson — all of whom have been mentioned in the last two weeks as possible replacements for Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres — are now considered "highly unlikely" to get a full-time gig on Fox's ratings behemoth.

Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman are in negotiations to star in "A Dolphin's Tale," Warner Bros.-based Alcon Entertainment's inspirational animal tale being directed by Charles Martin Smith. "Dolphin" is inspired by the true story of a dolphin named Winter who was rescued off the Florida coast and taken in by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. The movie version centers on a boy who befriends an injured dolphin who lost her tail in a crab trap. Through their bond and friendship, the boy motivates everyone around him to help save the dolphin by creating a prosthetic appendage to replace the dolphin's tail. The marine mammal's strong survival instincts become an inspiration to people with special needs throughout the world. Connick Jr. plays a vet who rescues the mammal and brings her to runs the marine hospital he runs. Judd plays the boy's mother while Freeman is a doctor who creates a prosthetic limb for Winter.