Franchise

All Natalie Gunshannon wanted was to be paid a fair wage for her work, she said. Gunshannon, 27, of Dallas Township, worked at McDonald's Restaurant on the Dallas Highway from April 24 to May 15. When she received her first paycheck, enclosed was a Chase Bank debit card with instructions on how to use it and the fees attached. Her future earnings would be deposited into the debit card account and she could access her money from there. Gunshannon never signed the card and when she returned to work she asked her supervisor if she could be paid by check or by direct deposit.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie married Philadelphia resident Tina Lai in a private ceremony this weekend. Lurie, 61, announced last July that he and Christina Weiss Lurie were getting divorced after 20 years of marriage. Lai will have no official role in the Eagles organization. The wedding was attended by family and close friends. "I am happy and excited as Tina and I begin our lives together," Lurie said in a statement. Lai, 39, is from a family that owns restaurants in Philadelphia, including the Vietnam Restaurant in Chinatown and the Vietnam Cafe in University City.

The host Chicago Blackhawks set a franchise record with their 10th consecutive victory and extended their points streak to 29 games with a 5-3 win against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night. Bryan Bickell scored twice in the first period and Patrick Kane added a big goal in the third as Chicago (20-0-3) remained the only team in the NHL without a regulation loss. It also snapped a tie with the 1977-78 Montreal Canadiens for the second-longest points streak in league history. Elsewhere: Eric Fehr scored 37 seconds into overtime and the host Washington Capitals rallied from a three-goal, first-period deficit to beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3. . . . Radek Martinek scored the tiebreaking goal eight minutes into the third period and the host New York Islanders handed Montreal its first regulation loss in nearly a month with a 6-3 victory.

HENRIK ZETTERBERG scored the first of Detroit's three goals in the opening period and the Red Wings broke a franchise record with their 15th straight home victory, 5-0 over the Buffalo Sabres last night. It is the longest single-season winning streak by an NHL team at home since 1976 when the Flyers won 20 in a row to match a league mark set by Boston during the 1929-30 season, according to STATS, LLC. The Red Wings won 14 straight at home in 1965. Detroit's Jimmy Howard made 27 saves for his fifth shutout this season and NHL-high 27th victory.

LOS ANGELES - It's the question we've all been pondering from the second we heard that three more "Star Wars" movies were planned: Who will direct them? When George Lucas announced last week he was selling Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion, he also revealed that the long-rumored Episodes VII, VIII and IX were in the works. Instantly, fans began tossing around names of directors who'd be a good fit for this revered material. So let's call this a wish list, a wouldn't-it-be-cool list.

'C LAP YOUR HANDS, everybody, for the Delaware 87ers. " On Saturday the 76ers announced the completion of the purchase of a franchise for the NBA Development League, to be called the Delaware 87ers, which will play games at the Bob Carpenter Center on the University of Delaware campus. The team nickname refers to 1787, the year Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. "The creation of the Delaware 87ers is an important milestone in our quest to ensure that the Philadelphia 76ers are viewed in all respects to be a world-class and cutting-edge NBA franchise," said managing owner Josh Harris.

IT PAYS to play a skill position in the NFL, like New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, or receivers Wes Welker and Dwayne Bowe. It also pays to be a kicker, as five placekickers and one punter were given franchise tags, protecting their current teams from losing them without compensation. The NFL's deadline for applying the tags was yesterday afternoon, and a late flurry saw 10 players added to the list. In all, 21 players were tagged. Only Brees, the 2011 Associated Press Offensive Player of the Year, was made an exclusive franchise player, meaning he is not free to sign with another team.

20th in a series of 25 Setup: The 76ers sign ABA star George McGinnis to a 6-year, $3 million-plus contract, bringing a struggling franchise the superstar it needed to become successful again. Without the signing of McGinnis, it is doubtful owner Irv Kosloff would have been able to sell the team to Fitz Dixon and highly doubtful the Sixers would have been attractive enough to lure Julius Erving a year later. It's the summer of 1975 and the Sixers, coming off a 34-48 season, were in need of a franchise player, a player to help them escape the tag of "NBA Doormat," and also fill up the seats at the Spectrum.

The Washington Redskins closed the 2011 season with a 34-10 loss at Lincoln Financial Field that left them at 5-11, their fourth straight last-place finish in the NFC East. Their starting quarterback was Rex Grossman. Their future appeared bleak. Redskins coach Mike Shanahan made a bold move in March when the franchise surrendered three first-round picks and a second-round pick to move up four slots in the draft so it could select quarterback Robert Griffin III. It looked like a hefty price, but it gave the Redskins the opportunity to draft the most valuable asset in the NFL: a franchise quarterback.

When the first Die Hard came out - yes, 25 years ago - Bruce Willis, armed with wisecracks, weaponry, and the boom and bluster of Beethoven's Ninth , helped redefine the action genre. It seemed as though every other movie released during the next decades begged comparison: Die Hard on a train, Die Hard on a boat, Die Hard at the yoga retreat. And the formula - the tough Joe (or John, as in John McClane) with the snappy comebacks and the big guns, going solo against swarms of terrorists and madmen - was amped up and expanded upon.

Condensed from Daily News movie critic Gary Thompson's reviews, unless noted otherwise. AFTER EARTH M. Night Shyamalan directs Will and Jaden Smith in a sci-fi adventure about a father and son trying to survive an inhospitable Earth. The flora and fauna are enjoyably diverse, but the charismatic elder Smith is straightjacketed in a stern-dad role. (PG-13) B- NOW YOU SEE ME Dueling magicians match wits in a so-so riff on "The Prestige," helped by a cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg.The magic acts have an energetic, Stick It To The Man theme.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie married Philadelphia resident Tina Lai in a private ceremony this weekend. Lurie, 61, announced last July that he and Christina Weiss Lurie were getting divorced after 20 years of marriage. Lai will have no official role in the Eagles organization. The wedding was attended by family and close friends. "I am happy and excited as Tina and I begin our lives together," Lurie said in a statement. Lai, 39, is from a family that owns restaurants in Philadelphia, including the Vietnam Restaurant in Chinatown and the Vietnam Cafe in University City.

'C LAP YOUR HANDS, everybody, for the Delaware 87ers. " On Saturday the 76ers announced the completion of the purchase of a franchise for the NBA Development League, to be called the Delaware 87ers, which will play games at the Bob Carpenter Center on the University of Delaware campus. The team nickname refers to 1787, the year Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. "The creation of the Delaware 87ers is an important milestone in our quest to ensure that the Philadelphia 76ers are viewed in all respects to be a world-class and cutting-edge NBA franchise," said managing owner Josh Harris.

Emmy Preiss and Harriet Mills launched a party-and-paint franchising empire after a road trip to South Carolina that involved at least two bottles of wine and two great works of art. "We went and had a girls' weekend there," Mills said. "And the rest is history. " Inspired, the pair opened their first Wine and Design in Raleigh, N.C., in March 2010 and began franchising the business a year later. Today, Preiss, 31, and Mills, 32, have 26 franchisees in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and New York.

Iron Man 3 is the heavy-lifter at theaters, with a colossal overseas debut that overshadows a sleepy pre-summer weekend at the domestic box office. The superhero sequel starring Robert Downey Jr. got a head start on its domestic launch next Friday with a $195.3 million opening in 42 overseas markets. Studio estimates show the true-crime tale Pain & Gain muscled into first place domestically with a $20 million debut. The movie, starring Mark Wahlberg , knocked off the Tom Cruise sci-fi adventure Oblivion , which slipped after a week at No. 1, to second place with $17.4 million.

IT TURNED OUT there were no franchise quarterbacks to be found in the 2007 NFL draft, but that didn't stop the Oakland Raiders from selecting JaMarcus Russell first overall, or the Browns from taking Brady Quinn 22nd. A franchise QB is the holy grail, the one thing everybody agrees a team needs to win the Super Bowl. That hasn't always been the case - Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson won Super Bowls for Baltimore and Tampa Bay a decade or so ago. But since then, it's been the guys with pedigrees on the podium, Pro Bowl performers who tended to have been drafted in the first round, with the exception of Tom Brady.

Josh Harris, majority owner of what remains of the Philadelphia 76ers, said last week that the organization is in the "advanced stages" of buying a D-League franchise. For those keeping count, that will give them two of those. There is no other way to look at the local NBA team at the moment. Getting a minor-league franchise is somewhat redundant for Harris and his merry band of amateurs, but at least a coaching change doesn't run $4.5 million in that league. That's what it cost Harris to achieve some measure of peace when Doug Collins decided to resign but wanted the final year of his contract as a parting gift.

WELL, AT LEAST the Sixers have the consultant thing down solid. Between them, Rod Thorn, who is stepping down as team president to become a consultant, and Doug Collins, who quit as head coach on Thursday to become a team adviser, combine for about 100 years of NBA experience. As he goes about the business of trying again to repair a shattered franchise, Sixers owner Josh Harris will have little problem finding sources for advice. It's just a question of whether Thorn will be in Harris' right ear and Collins in the left or vice versa.

ON THE OCCASION of Doug Collins' final game as the coach of the Sixers, it is impossible not to acknowledge the futility of making your coach the face of your franchise, and to bring up another name: Larry Bowa. The Sixers have spent the last 3 years finding out what the Phillies found out a decade ago - that your coach/manager does not sell one ticket for your franchise, not one, not even to his family (because they get in for free). Since Dallas Green, there has never been a more popular Phillies manager than Bowa - not even Charlie Manuel, who won the whole damn thing in 2008.

Nicholas Papanier, 57, owner of PrimoHoagies Franchising Inc., was in federal court in Camden two weeks ago, pleading guilty to tax evasion stemming from taxes he owed on hoagie shop operators' cash payments to him for salami, ham, and other deli ingredients. This week, his company was back in Camden's federal courthouse, having filed a lawsuit against one of its shop operators. The suit, filed Tuesday, says Jay Venito of Mount Laurel agreed in January 2011 to run a PrimoHoagie store on Route 38 in Lumberton.