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Spoiler alert 24 fans

By SHARON FINK
Published April 12, 2006

Jack Bauer will survive not only this, his fifth day worse than you'll ever have, but more as well. If the show doesn't die first.

Kiefer Sutherland has signed a deal to stay with the hit Fox series for three more seasons. Media reports say that Sutherland could become TV's highest-paid actor in a drama (estimates range from $30-million to $40-million), and the terms also include him being an executive producer (more money) and setting up a production company for his own projects at 20th Century Fox Television (even more money and "creative outlets").

Who knows what this really means?

The show mows down key people without warning more regularly than a lot of people mow their lawns. The producers and Sutherland always like to say that it's not a given Jack will remain alive in their world-ending scenarios.

And Fox so far has agreed to pick up only one more season of 24. We do know what that really means: in the world of TV, nothing.

WHERE'S THAT "24' FEATURE MOVIE THEY KEEP TALKING ABOUT? There still are no firm plans. But it probably would look a lot like Sutherland's new movie, The Sentinel, due out next week.

WHY IN-LAWS HAVE A BAD REPUTATION: Madonna has been denying for months - well, years - that her marriage to Guy Ritchie is in trouble. And now her father-in-law has spoken up to undermine her.

John Ritchie tells a British magazine that the couple had been having a rougher-than-normal time but things seem to be better now that they have left Britain to spend time in Los Angeles.

"L.A. seems to have helped them. It's easier out there because there is less pressure," John Ritchie was quoted as saying in Closer.

"You can never know that things will work, but they do seem to be fitting into each other more."

WHY EXES HAVE A BAD REPUTATION: Jennifer Lopez claims that her first husband told her that if she didn't give him $5-million, he would publish a book full of unflattering details about her, her family and their short, presuperstardom relationship.

So Lopez is suing Ojani Noa to keep the book from being published.

Lopez met Noa while he was a waiter in Miami. He proposed during the wrap party for her breakout movie, Selena, and they got married in 1997. A year later, they were divorced.

In the suit, reported by TV's The Insider, Lopez says Noa violated a confidentiality agreement they reached to settle a lawsuit Noa filed in 2004 claiming Lopez fired him as manager of her Pasadena, Calif., restaurant without a reason.

Noa agreed not to disparage Lopez or make money by disclosing his juicy details, her suit says.

In January, details of Noa's proposed book surfaced in the New York Post. Lopez's lawyers contacted Noa's, and Noa replied that he would keep shopping the book, her suit says.

DETAILS, DETAILS: According to the Post report of Noa's book proposal, they included: Lopez had at least two affairs while they were married; one of those affairs was with Sean "Puff Daddy/Diddy" Combs, which Noa says he learned about in the Post; Lopez had an affair with current husband Marc Anthony while she was involved with Combs postdivorce and Anthony was married; and Christmas with the Lopez family was "like a study in avarice and envy."

Lopez's lawyers told the Post that everything Noa is claiming is a lie.

Sharon Fink can be reached at fink@sptimes.com or 727 893-8525.

[Last modified April 12, 2006, 01:06:10]