Trade Round Up: 'Cars'' Dark Secret
· Variety assumes Cars will be this weekend's top earner, but wonders if it will beat any box office records, particularly when parents start warning each other of the dark, autopian vision of its ending: [SPOILER!] That the reason it's devoid of any humans is because they're all being ground up for fuel in subterranean farms. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg tells Sunday Morning Shootout that Paramount was his second choice for DreamWorks' buyout, and that he "would love to go off and make a picture like Capote or George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck,"stopping himself before saying, "You know, movies that earn their Oscars, rather than getting nominations because I'm, like, Steven Spielberg." [Variety]
· Former Friends writer and Will & Grace showrunner Greg Malins is joining How I Met Your Mother, where he will school the show's green creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays on the proper way to describe a blowjob to the writers' room. [Variety]
· Reese Witherspoon's husband is in negotiations to star as the lead in director Kimberly Peirce's first feature since Boys Don't Cry, the Iraq war drama, Stop-Loss. [THR]
· Ratings are up for the NBA finals over last year, with the boost's source suspected of coming from overcompensating, straight men feeling the urge to catch the nearest game after being subjected to an inescapable week of Brandon Routh's suberbulge. [THR]