Knowing that it might be a while before their agents at CAA can find an acceptable job for his new, still-unemployed wife, Tom Cruise apparently realizes that someone in his household is eventually going to need to work consistently if they plan on maintaining the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed (it would be a shame if he had to replace the solid-gold cuff that explodes in the event of a Holmes escape attempt with a cheaply made one that might turn her ankle green well before detonation), and is now reportedly out trolling for light-hearted parts intended to play against his completely undeserved, career-hampering image as a self-serious browbeater of those under the sway of the pharmaceutical industry. TMZ reports that Cruise has recently chatted with Ben Stiller about the possibility of hooking him up with the kind of buddy role that he usually saves for Owen Wilson:

· Warner Bros. announces a deal with Fox-owned stations for a daily show based on website TMZ.com. Think an "edgier" Insider or E.T., but with regular segments devoted to video of Brandon "The Firecrotch Guy" Davis entering and exiting Hyde and an onscreen bug devoted to monitoring exactly how much gas is in Paris Hilton's car at any given moment. [Variety]
· Finally, the words we've been patiently awaiting while lamenting a singular talent being wasted on party-hosting and horse-auction gigs: "Tara Reid is attached to star in and executive produce the indie romantic comedy Honestly," the story of "a hard-boiled private eye who works as a temptress to test the fidelity of philandering husbands" (and then, of course, eventually falls for her mistress-diddling quarry) . Even more touching: It's being directed by her brother. [THR]
· The highest-rated Globes in three years earns NBC a Monday night ratings win, a victory that Donald Trump will soon attribute to his frequent appearance on camera due to his Apprentice-promoting placement at The Greatest Golden Globes Table in the World. [Variety]
· Netflix debuts its new online Watch Now video-on-demand program, which lets customers stream movies and TV shows over the internets free of charge. [THR]
· Now you can say it with authority: Germans think Ben Stiller is funnier than Hitler, as Night at the Museum holds off Third Reich yukfest My Fuhrer - The Absolutely Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler at the Teutonic box office. [Variety]

Congratulations! You've survived 2006. Now sit right back down at that desk and do the same soul-crushing things for another 365 days, beginning with your morning review of the weekend box office results. (We present the 4-day grosses, because bigger numbers are more fun than smaller ones! Especially if you're a studio distribution executive!)

Toast surviving yet another Christmas relatively unscathed—save for that one unfortunate incident in which Grandma's ill-timed offering of a homemade sugar cookie during a particularly strenuous match of Wii bowling resulted in a controller
lodging itself into the base of her skull—with the holiday weekend's box office numbers:
1. Night at the Museum—$30 million
That Night at the Museum performed this well shouldn't come as that big of a surprise: God knows parents weren't going to bring their kids to an actual museum this weekend, where they would be forced to interact with their children for any number of hours, while being required to address questions whose answers may not necessarily have been covered by the exhibits' description plaques. Thanks to Ben Stiller's screen adventures, however, parents could feel secure in knowing their kids' weekend entertainment included valuable educational elements as well—that Teddy Roosevelt had a facility with multiple accents, for example, including "old Jewish man."

Is Ben Stiller's new gray hairdo a bid for gravitas, a natural result of the human aging process, or an attempt to emulate the hotttness of our most favorite newsanchor? The lady portion of Best Week Ever seems to think it's an improvement over whatever his hair looked like before; our Jew-hotness circuits are way overloaded for today, so we can't be sure. Anyway, just putting it out there.

A Defamer operative sent in this World! Exclusive! Photo! of a needlepoint pillow featuring the unmistakable likeness of perpetually put-upon screen comic Ben Stiller—an expertly executed craft set for prominent placement in the upcoming Farrelly Brothers production, The Heartbreak Kid (aka The Seven Day Itch). No background prop this, the painstakingly hand-stitched cushion plays a vital role in plot advancement, setting the star off on one of his trademark meltdown scenes that audiences—perhaps "love" is too strong a word here, but certainly expect—to see in a Ben Stiller film. Our operative explains all, after the jump:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so start sending them in more often! Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you shared an elevator ride with a verrry flirtatious former Friends star.

In today's The NY Times, Sharon Waxman looks at why Fox and Sony "pulled the plug" on Used Guys, the long-gestating comedy starring Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, and directed by Meet the Parents/Austin Powers'Jay Roach, a seemingly sure-thing project featuring all the rubber-faced and/or hyperbolically neurotic comedy antics the moviegoing public craves, and which was ready to roll into production about a month from now. The short answer, "How can our poor little studios hope to make any money when the budget is $112 million and the greedy, extortionist talent is sucking up all the back-end profit?" seems deeply unsatisfying to Roach, whose entire worldview was thrown into turmoil and meaninglessness by the abrupt plug-pulling. Reports the Times:

The Defamer Special Correspondent on Celebrity Brunching spent part of a leisurely afternoon monitoring the food intake of one of Hollywood's biggest stars, filing this brief report on the red-hot new trend of "bring your own cuisine":

· With an eye towards cleaning up at next year's holiday box office, Fox signs Ben Stiller for A Night at the Museum, in which Stiller will star as a security guard who "unwittingly unleashes a curse that brings to life the bugs and animals on display." Excuse us. Stiller will star as a twitchy, neurotic, and impotent-rage-prone security guard who "unwittingly unleashes a curse that brings to life the bugs and animals on display." [Variety]
· Despite CBS's killer hurricane and NBC's live debate on The West Wing/two-hour L&O:SVU counterprogramming Hail Marys, America still preferred to watch the creepy, gay-seeming pharmacist contemplate date-raping Marcia Cross on Desperate Housewives. [THR]
· Michael Douglas mercifully chooses a role which will probably not require any further restorative plastic surgery, signing up to play "an eccentric and manic-depressive father who becomes obsessed with his belief that there's buried treasure in the San Fernando Valley" in the Alexander Payne-produced King of California. [Variety]
· Now that an Everybody Loves Raymond spinoff looks like a longshot, Brad Garrett realizes that he might need someone to find him a job, hires William Morris to hunt down the appropriate sitcom second-banana roles and CBS MOWs. [THR]
· It's William Morris Signing Day! Catherine Zeta-Jones returns to the welcoming arms of longtime WMA agent George Freeman, whom she jilted for CAA two years ago. [Variety]

Blogger DEADlines does us le favor of interpreting a Le Journal de Montreal article from its original Canuck-flavored French into a more Hollywood-friendly, monosyllabic English. But regardless of what language you happen to speak, the universal language of 'Hatin'-ese' needs no translation:

Wow, it's almost like the happy parents are rubbing it right in Jennifer Aniston's face. How insensitive. Don't they know this is Jen's day? Their baby was born almost a month ago.

· Today on the Ariannaville Times-Picayune: Adam McKay (you know him as Will Ferrell's personal writer) on Talladega, subtly plugging Talladega Nights but never outright saying the title, David Rees cheekily wonders when he gets to meet Gwyneth and slip Larry David his screenplay, and King Tut looks alarmingly like a bald version of Jaye Davidson in Stargate.
· Bloggers: The Sitcom: Naturally,"No pay, but DVD provided."
· Morgan Freeman wins the rights to morganfreeman.com, thus freeing him from the inevitable indignity of having his identity hijacked by Golden Palace
· Scientology Losing Ground to New Fictionology
· Ben Stiller: "the best-looking Jew in showbiz." Oh, don't worry, the guy who said this was just kidding.

They are Hollywood's comedy cartel, the actors, writers, and producers that can walk into any studio in town and get a greenlight from a pitch with the simple formula "[Hot comedic actor] is a [wacky or offbeat occupation]" (examples: Will Ferrell as anchorman/NASCAR driver/beach volleyball player, Ben Stiller as dodgeball player/Starsky, etc). The implications are chilling: You'd better enjoy the goofy chemistry between Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, find Stiller's constipated Everyman rage as hilarious as ever, or learn to love the sight of Ferrell slathered in cocoa butter, because that's all you're going to get for the next three to five years.

In a letter in the current issue of The New Yorker, Owen Wilson defends on- and off-screen buddy Ben Stiller from getting pushed around by movie critic/big bully David Denby. (Click on the picture of the pals to see a scan of the letter or read the transcription below.) Unsurprisingly, Wilson's is a much more eloquent (and funny) response than the full-page attack ad that Rob Schneider unleashed on the LAT's Patrick Goldstein last week. Note especially Wilson's subtle invocation of the threat of violence, and contrast with Schneider's near-promise of bloodshed. In any case, we're witnessing a hot new trend being born in Hollywood—we're sure dozens of actors are learning how to write so they can publicly dress down unkind critics.

Send sightings to tips@gawker.com.
· "Jill Hennesey on Waverly and Christopher Street about 1:30 PM [yesterday]. She was with a dark haired guy with a spray on tan." · "This past weekend at Cielo, my model friend and I sat at a table with Tara Reid and others. Later that night, my friend *the model* was standing in front of Tara talking to a guy and drinking a martini. Tara felt the need to push my friend for no apparent reason, causing her drink to topple and left her in wonderment. We both turned around and asked what the hell was the problem, Tara simply said whatever and walked off. I wonder if maybe the Hiltons are rubbing off her a bit too much?"
· "Ethan Hawke casually walking near Restoration Hardware on 23rd st near flatiron."

· Details Editor-in-Chief Dan Peres on a Stuff cartoon depicting Details offices as staffed by leather-and-chaps-clad gay men: "Once and for all, both my reader and I are completely comfortable with the content of Details. The guy behind these Stuff cartoons has raised homophobia to new heights. Now leave me alone, I'm in the middle of a waxing." [Page Six]
· Dr. Seuss gets litigious: Mitch and Doug Pollok, who run One Fish Two Fish on Madison Avenue and 97th Street, are being challenged by Dr. Seuss Enterprises for the right to use the name. [Page Six]
· Fired Us Weekly writer Lewis Beale: "I've been fired. You can ask the powers-that-be why. I'll miss a whole bunch of you. And heythere are worse things than getting fired in April. The pool in my complex opens on Memorial Day." [Page Six]
· Cindy Adams: "Guess who the Middle East's problems have upset? Plastic surgeons. Big-spender Arabs come here to have their two faces lifted. They've put off the trips." (Two faces lifted? Oooch.) [Cindy Adams]
· Chicago is now the highest grossing Miramax film ever at $157 million. [Liz Smith]
· Ben Stiller, on fan mail: "I pay a huge chunk of money to my agent and publicity people to shield me from my fan mail. I don't even want to know how many letters I get. I don't see fan mail as a good thing. It always makes me think of stalkers." [NY Daily News]