Trade Round-Up: New 'Iwo Jima' Release Date Sets Up Awards Deathmatch Between Clint Eastwood WWII Movies
· Hot on the heels of the launch of NBC Universal's online humor site DotComedy (it's still around a week later, apparently—so far, so good), AOL and HBO announce plans to erect This Just In in January, a novel idea centered around the unprecedented use of blogging technology to explore current events in comedic fashion. [Variety]
The Academy announces the Oscar documentary shortlist, which includes Dixie Chicks film Shut Up and Sing and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Among the snubbed: Wordplay, Who Killed the Electric Car?, and This Film Is Not Yet Rated. [THR]
Warner Bros. suddenly moves up the release of Clint Eastwood's other World War II drama, Letters from Iwo Jima, to late December to put it into awards contention, hoping to snag some of the nominations that may elude his floptastic DreamWorks effort, Flags of our Fathers. [Variety]
· 27.2 million viewers tune in to watch Emmitt Smith stiff-arm Mario Lopez on the way to the Dancing with the Stars championship, while temporary Lost timeslot-filler Daybreak's premiere was "trounced" by Criminal Minds. [THR]
Fox decides that since it might look bad to cancel all of their new shows, they might as well pick up additional episodes of Til Death and Standoff in hopes that they might eventually draw some viewers once American Idol and 24 return. [Variety]