Trade Round-Up: Brad Pitt To Play Someone Like Himself
· Brad Pitt will star in the mind-bendingly self-referential Sony pic Chad Schmidt, where he'll play an actor that can't get work because he looks too much like Brad Pitt. You know, kind of like Skeet Ulrich and Johnny Depp. [Variety]
· Fading NBC golden boy Jeff Zucker's heartsick over his network's falling ratings, but will dry his tears with all the money pouring into NBC Universal. [Variety]
· Ripped from the headlines, pooped into development: Warner Bros. buys disturbing internet chat article U Want Me 2 Kill Him? from Vanity Fair for Bryan Singer to develop and direct. Singer needn't worry—that sort of thing almost never happens on dating sites. [Variety]
· Academy members complain that technical award winners will be stuck in the ghetto of the audience instead of onstage when they're presented with awards. Hey, it could be worse, you could be stuntmen and not get an award at all. [THR]
· Fox Searchlight singlehandedly decimates the Australian film industry with its decision to postpone Eucalyptus indefinitely in the wake of suspicious-sounding "script problems." [THR]