A $100 million pitcher who throws a "gyroball." Rose McGowan as a zombie-killer with a gun for a leg. And a thriller set in the Jewish homeland -- in Alaska.

As 2006 ticks to a close, the entertainment-industrial complex is busy churning out the coming year's worth of diversions. Some of what you will be seeing, reading and hearing will mark the end of an era. Tony Soprano's reign over northern New Jersey (and cable TV) will come to a close. J.K. Rowling will publish her final Harry Potter book. And the music industry may watch its power -- and profits -- continue to crumble.

But there will also be plenty of rebirth. Power-rocker Axl Rose is mounting a comeback with an album more than a decade in the making, and Bay Area bard Armistead Maupin will publish the first installment of "Tales of the City" since 1989. Saturday-morning cartoons from that era, like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Transformers," are being resurrected as Hollywood blockbusters, while the next sequel to the "Terminator" movies may end up as a fall series on network television.

After a year of budget-busting new TV series, several channels are developing high-concept shows set in the past or future -- or, in the case of one ABC script, several timelines at once. And given the success of shows with somewhat mystical conceits, such as "Heroes" and "Lost," the networks are increasingly developing programs with supernatural setups, like a lawyer who may also be a prophet, a psychologist who performs exorcisms and a homicide detective who is secretly 400 years old.

In sports, TV ratings are changing the game -- literally. After one of the lowest-rated World Series in at least 40 years, Major League Baseball is moving the series back three days so that it will more likely end on a weeknight, when more people are tuned in. Meanwhile, golf's PGA Tour is adding a new playoff regime to boost viewership.

Many blockbuster acts will return. No. 1 bands like Radiohead and Coldplay will be working on new albums. Norman Mailer's new novel is a portrait of Hitler as a young boy, while Michael Chabon's alternate-history thriller is set amongst Yiddish-speaking Alaskans. And when summer-movie season begins, "Spider-Man," "Shrek" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- which together have raked in more than $2.5 billion at the U.S. box office -- will all return for their third installments.

Here's a preview of how we'll be amusing ourselves in 2007:

TV

Despite competing demands on their attention from the Internet and DVDs, American households are watching more primetime TV than they have in at least 15 years. And channels up and down the dial say they are looking for unusual concepts that will keep viewers from drifting away in 2007.

One likely theme in the new year: time. Several broadcast networks are working on fall shows set in the past or in the future, or involving time travel. CBS recently approved a pilot called "Swingtown" about wife-swapping couples in 1970s suburbia. Fox has three series in the works, including a pilot about a 400-year-old cop in New York, and a show produced by Steven Spielberg about World War II scientists who travel to the present day. In development at ABC's is "Life on Mars," an adaptation of a British show about a modern-day police detective who mysteriously ends up in the 1970s, when pre-"CSI" forensic labs took two weeks to process fingerprints.

Cable channels will be fighting to expand their piece of an increasingly fragmented pie. Sarah Silverman, part of the resurgence in offensive comedy, has a new sitcom on Comedy Central about her life, while networks like Sci Fi and FX have returning hits like "Battlestar Galactica," "The Shield" and "The Sopranos." The last will end its eight-year run on HBO this spring with nine episodes -- one more than creator David Chase initially requested.

Meanwhile, both HBO and Showtime are working on dysfunctional-family dramas that will vie to take its place. Showtime's "The Tudors" will focus on the prototypical philanderer-murderer boss, Henry VIII. And on HBO, "John From Cincinnati," the new "surf noir" show from "Deadwood" creator David Milch, will examine a family of Southern California surfers.

Offbeat comedies, like NBC's "30 Rock" and ABC's "Ugly Betty," were popular this fall and may proliferate, too. Peter and Bobby Farrelly -- whose movies include "There's Something About Mary" -- are working on a new series for NBC called "I'm With Stupid," about the odd coupling of a homeless guy and a guy in a wheelchair. CBS, for its part, is developing a show called "Fugly," about a three unsightly siblings who buy plastic surgery for one sister and move to Hollywood to profit from her artificial hotness.

Sports

A crop of talented new players may cause a shift in professional basketball in the next year -- before they even go pro.

Greg Oden, a 7-foot Ohio State University freshman, is generating buzz similar to Shaquille O'Neal's 15 years ago and is likely to be a top pick in the National Basketball Association's draft on June 28. He may be joined by other college stars, such as North Carolina's Brandan Wright and Florida's Joakim Noah, in what some observers are calling the strongest draft class in decades.

The new talent may help revive the teams in the NBA's ailing Eastern Conference, which are barely winning 40 percent of their games with their Western counterparts this season. But in the short term, Mr. Oden's prowess may spur a covert race for the worst record in the league, since draft picks are allotted to the worst teams. The Philadelphia 76ers began the process by trading Allen Iverson, the team's star, to the Denver Nuggets last week.

Several baseball teams are banking on new faces, too. The Boston Red Sox have shelled out more than $100 million to bring another monster to Fenway Park -- Daisuke Matsuzaka, a 26-year-old pitcher dubbed "The Monster" in Japan and said to use the gyroball, an elusive breaking pitch. Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs have imported a new manager and new players, like former New York Yankee Alfonso Soriano, in a $300 million bid to end their curse.

The World Series will come three days later this year, starting on a Tuesday. It is a change Fox, which broadcasts the games, sought so that games 6 and 7 wouldn't fall on low-rated weekend nights. Golf, meanwhile, is moving to a Nascar-inspired schedule that will culminate in a series of playoff tournaments designed to goose ratings.

One potential result: stiffer competition for Tiger Woods, who has come to dominate the world golf rankings and the race for the most earnings. The new system will reset the points awarded to the top players before the four final tournaments, eliminating the possibility of a runaway leader in the competition for a new $10 million purse.

Movies

Hollywood's popcorn recipe rarely changes. There will be at least nine major sequels hitting theaters in 2007, including June's "Live Free or Die Hard" and July's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." There will be Oscar bait, like the adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel "Atonement," starring Keira Knightley. But there will be a few new ingredients, too.

Werner Herzog, the German art-house director known for movies about monomaniacal characters in thrall to their own obsessions, is headed for a wide release in U.S. multiplexes in March. "Rescue Dawn," which stars Christian Bale and generated a strong response at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, is a remake of Mr. Herzog's late '90s documentary about a German-born U.S. pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam war. Mr. Herzog's 2005 documentary "Grizzly Man" was a minor hit in the U.S., grossing $3.2 million at the U.S. box office.

Another oddball entry comes from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez: "Grindhouse," which consists of two back-to-back feature-length movies, each by one of the two directors. Both offer their characteristically over-the-top violence; in one film, for instance, Rose McGowan boasts a peg leg that fires ammunition.

The year also promises a number of movies adapted from old cartoons, including March's "TNMT," the first "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie since 1993, and July's "The Transformers," about dueling bands of extraterrestrial robots that unfold from everyday objects. "The Simpsons Movie," adapted from the TV series, comes out in July. Its studio, Twentieth Century Fox, hasn't revealed details about the plot, but confirms that producers have recorded scenes with Albert Brooks, Minnie Driver and activist Erin Brockovich.

Books

Book sales are up again this year, according to figures from Nielsen BookScan. But the stakes are rising, too.

Next week's "Sacred Games," a 916-page novel described as the "Godfather" of India and set in the seamy underworld of Mumbai, comes from a relatively unknown author. Last year, it became the subject of a bidding war that won author Vikram Chandra a $1 million advance. Another loudly promoted new author is former blogger Dana Vachon, who won a six-figure deal in 2005. His debut, "Mergers & Acquisitions," due in April, follows a first-year investment banker as he dives into cynicism and expensive cocktails.

In July, Armistead Maupin will return with "Michael Tolliver Lives," his first addition to the "Tales of the City" series since 1989. The book will follow the titular gay gardener, now 52, during one day in his life. Other established authors will also be back in 2007, including Norman Mailer, Jane Smiley, Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon, whose long-delayed "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" comes out in April. Meanwhile, the unfinished "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last installment in the young wizard's series, is already the best-selling book on amazon.co.uk, even though its publisher has yet to set an exact publication date.

In nonfiction, neurologist-author Oliver Sacks will come out this fall with "Music and the Brain," a book that synthesizes the doctor's research. One man Dr. Sacks has worked with, for example, can play entire pieces of music by memory, even though his severe amnesia prevents him from remembering where he is or events that happened only seconds before.

One of the bigger spring heavyweights is likely to be Pope Benedict XVI, who is coming out with a biography of Jesus. His publisher says it will print 200,000 copies for release near Easter -- hoping to emulate Pope John Paul II's 1994 book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," which sold half a million copies in its first week.

Music

In 2005, an unknown Brooklyn, N.Y., indie-rock outfit, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, released its debut album, which the band members sold themselves on the Internet. It received rave reviews in venues such as Rolling Stone and the hipster music site pitchforkmedia.com, giving the unsigned band national acclaim.

Now, less than two years later, the quintet is getting ready to release its follow-up, "Some Loud Thunder," turning down several record deals in the process, according to their spokesman. The album, which comes out in January, may represent a nascent trend in the music industry, in which some musicians eschew record labels to market and distribute their music using Web sites and MySpace pages. Earlier this year, singer Nellie McKay released her second album on her own, too, after a dispute with her label over length.

While still a small phenomenon, it's unhappy news for the music industry, which saw sales fall again in 2006 and increasingly relies on mega sellers, such as 50 Cent, whose new album "Before I Self Destruct" is expected in the spring. But the situation could turn more dire if marquee acts like Radiohead decide to go do-it-yourself, as well. The mournful English electro-rock band, whose last three albums have hit the top five in the U.S., has not yet re-signed to a label for its upcoming CD, currently due in 2007, according to a spokesman. It will be the first Radiohead album in three years.

Some of the 2007's most anticipated albums come from established names. Coldplay is headed on a Latin American tour early this year to road test new material. The new album, which still has no title, could be ready in 2007 or early 2008, according to a spokeswoman. Critical favorites such as Wilco, the Shins and Arcade Fire all have albums currently slated for the early part of the year, too. Live recordings of Wilco's new material have recently hit the Internet.

Meanwhile, Axl Rose -- the frontman of the power-ballad group Guns N' Roses -- is trying to make a comeback with an album that has been delayed so many times that its title, "Chinese Democracy," sounds like a winking reference to another long-awaited-for development that's unlikely to arrive in the near future. But the album now has a release date: March 6, 2007.