TV's favorite serial killer is in a contract dispute with his network. Also today: good news about Matt Saracen, weird news about Werner Herzog, nostalgic news from Disney, and half-bad news from NBC.

  • First it was The Simpsons and now Dexter might end because of a money fight. That show's star Michael C. Hall wants 24 million bones to do two more seasons, but Showtime only wants to pay him 20 million bones. It's a four million-bone fight! Come on, guys. That's not so many bones. Just meet in the middle. Two million bones. Hall, you take two million fewer bones, Showtime you pay two million more bones, and then the nice people can have their show. Me? I don't much care. That show should have ended after the John Lithgow season, but whatever, other people still really like it I think! So stop your foolish quarreling over a few million measly bones and deal with it, people. Do it for Dexter and Deb and bald guy and lady and all the other people on that show. [Deadline]
  • So at first I was all Nancy Negative about Disney rereleasing The Lion King in 3D because I thought it was just a cynical cash grab, but I've come around to thinking (isn't all this talk about my thought process super thrilling?) that it's actually probably a good thing, in that it hopefully reintroduces the hand-drawn animated movie to a whole new generation. So it's then also a good thing that Disney plans to give Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid (the best oneeeee) the same treatment. It's good that littluns who only know the computer stuff can see how it used to be done, big and bright on a movie screen. Disney is also doing this for Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc., which whatever, if you want to call those classics you can, but the important thing is that soon we will be able to go see The Little Mermaid at the movie theaters and be six years old all over again. [THR]
  • This is from yesterday, but whatever, it is worth talking about. Zach Gilford, who played stoic accidental quarterback and all around all-American sexbomb Matt Saracen on Friday Night Football Pants, has been cast as Arnold Schwarzenegger's sidekick in the former governor's first foray back into the movie realm, The Last Stand. I mean, this movie is probably going to be junky, but who cares! It's just good that Zach Gilford is getting work (that isn't about doctors in the Amazon or whatever) because we always knew Matt would make something of himself and here he is, acting in a big old movie next to the Terminator. Grandma Saracen must be so proud. [Deadline]
  • Ha, so it seems that Paramount accidentally paid Tommy Lee Jones $15 million, way more than he was meant to earn, for No Country for Old Men because they made a mistake on his contract and then they tried to cover the loss by being tricksy with an investor and now that investor is mad and is suing them. Jones had to sue them for his money too. Paramount! Get it together. You can't just be accidentally throwing around $15 million and doing fuzzy things with business partners to cover up your mistakes. Just double check the contract next time. Or at least put in a clause that says "Any mistakes in here are Tommy Lee Jones's fault and he owes you the money if you are owed any money." That'll teach him to sue a major movie studio for money he was contractually owed! [THR]
  • While The Playboy Club was busy getting canceled, two other NBC shows, the charming Up All Night and the horrifying Whitney, were both picked up for full seasons. So congratulations to them! That can be a very hard thing to pull off. I hope Up All Night gets into a groove and gets better with age, like Parks & Recreation, and I hope that Whitney bursts into flames and then gets hit by a truck and then falls over a cliff into the rocky ocean and is eaten by sharks and shot by a torpedo and then sinks all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and that's the last we ever hear from it. I don't love that show, is what I'm saying. [EW]
  • Here is weird news. Lovable weirdo Werner Herzog has been cast, as an actor, in the Tom Cruise thriller One Shot. Naturally he will play the villain, because what else could he really play? I guess the wise but wacky professor/doctor type character. But that's it! You're not going to see Werner Herzog as the dopily doting dad. Or as the seen-it-all cop. Though, we really should see him as both those things. They should replace Whitney with Werner, about a weary cop and family man (he's married to... oh let's say Leah Remini, she needs work) who, y'know, occasionally goes off and narrates tone poem-like documentaries about caves and stuff. I think we would all watch that. [THR]

[Photo via Getty]