Earl, 56, the man who invented the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain but then admits he drove it into bankruptcy by overexpanding it, has fronted a $1bn re-design of the former Aladdin Hotel-Casino that he and some partners bought in 2004 for $800m.

They stripped it of its Arabian theme, re-configured and re-designed a casino and gave a different film theme to each of the 3,000 rooms, complete with pieces of memorabilia from Earl's mammoth collection. The resort that has emerged stands on 35 acres in a prime location across the street from the posh Bellagio Hotel-Casino and just north of the MGM Grand.

A partnership with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, the resort has been rolling out new restaurants and bars since April. There's no Planet Hollywood eatery, however; the name's already licensed to a restaurant at Caesars Palace on the Strip and couldn't be reused.

"This is a resurgence, a re-launch of the brand and a launch as a gaming, lodging and time-share company," said Earl, who hopes to build Planet Hollywood casino resorts in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Macau, China. "It's always nice to get back to where you were. One needs to try to grab attention, get everyone to get a first look and then the quality of the product will keep people wanting to come back."

To make that splash, Earl has called upon dozens of his famous friends, including Planet Hollywood investors Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis, to kick off the renovated resort. The list of celebs is impressive - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andre Agassi andPamela Anderson are among them - but the coup of the weekend is a concert given by notoriously stage-shy Barbra Streisand.

"This may well go down as the biggest showbiz weekend in Vegas history," celebrity journalist Robin Leach gushed.

Perhaps, but other observers say that Earl's efforts to create a new celebrity hangout in a city where A-listers already chill at the Palms Hotel-Casino and the Hard Rock Hotel-Casino seems a bit contrived.

"It feels very fake," said Hunter Hillegas, the owner of RateVegas.Com and a longtime Vegas-watcher. "He's got a lot of celebrity friends, but it still feels totally phoney to me. The kind of the people he's getting are on the way out, they're not up-and-comers. I have serious doubts of the prospects of Planet Hollywood on a long-term scale."

Earl, who bought a 23 per cent stake in Everton football club last year, accepts the doubters, given his own history. He was seen as a wunderkind in the early 1990s when he left the Hard Rock Café chain to launch Planet Hollywood, which at its height had a market capitalisation of $1bn. Then it crashed.