Kelly Lynch! Make sure he doesn't try to steal second base!

Here we go again! VH1 (who else?) has just greenlit Scream Queens, a reality show in which 10 unknown actresses desperate to be the next Jamie Lee Curtis or Janet Leigh will compete for a starring role in an upcoming “major” Lionsgate film. And boy are they excited — one Lionsgate rep tells THR that “discovering new talent is always exciting,” while another chimes in by teaching us that “VH1 has had a tremendous track record in launching alternative programming that captures viewers' imaginations.” Yes, yes it does! Our brains have been expanded by Viacom's ongoing carnival featuring women degrading themselves in hot tubs and music execs attempting to Make A Band, Any Band Will Do quarter after quarter. But with a reputable horror studio behind Scream Queens and the fact that scary movies have launched more than a few major careers, this one may put its You’re The One That I Want and It Factor predecessors to shame. We look back at five recent Next Big Thing reality shows in an effort to place our bets:

It looks like there's nothing anybody can do to stop a fourth installment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, which Paramount is reportedly pushing to a 2010 release date and which should finally fulfill that looooong-standing global demand for an Eddie Murphy/Brett Ratner collaboration. But as hammy, craven and sadistic as the project seems at a glance, and although it's likely bound for a dispiriting PG-13 script, we find our tortured souls compelled to give this one a chance; follow the jump for a half-dozen reasons why we could think of worse news to wake up to on a Thursday. Feel free to add your own; we need all the reassurance we can get.

Meet Andy Fiscella. Andy owns the Lohan- and Dunst-infested Crown Bar, as well as the Dime and Winston’s. Andy’s likes include: brown corduroys, Brett Ratner, and knocking on wood for good luck. Andy’s dislikes include: Britney Spears, grade-school bullies, and anyone who would dare compare him to Troy Duffy. Which, of course, means he also dislikes us. You see, like Duffy, the rags-to-riches-to-rags former bartender who penned Boondock Saints only to wind up screwed over by Darth Weinstein, has an eerily similar trajectory as Andy — though Fiscella’s inevitable downfall still lies on the horizon. In a Metromix profile on the poor man’s Brent Bolthouse, we’re given the chance to dive inside of a “hot spot” club owner's mind grapes. And predictably, they’re rotten, sour, and likely to cause you to vomit.

A funny thing happened to Brett Ratner on the way to reviving Smell-o-Vision for a generation deprived of the aromatic arts: He tried filming Anton Yelchin and Olivia Thirlby fucking in a tree. In Central Park! Never one to do anything the easy way, Ratner bravely faced down layers of Gotham bureaucracy in the pursuit of his six-minute segment of the forthcoming omnibus film New York, I Love You:

Army Archerd surprises us every couple of months or so with a scoop worthy of his 55-year reputation as "Hollywood's Original Blogger," or whatever Variety is calling him these days. Today, for example, the veteran gadfly brings word of a cinematic revival so towering, so ahead-of-its-time, so... smelly it could only emerge from the smoldering cerebrum of Brett Ratner:

Rush Hour trilogy director Brett Ratner viciously fought off the accusations that he ordered his current girlfriend off an internet website. Ratner told reporters that he comes from Hollywood, where literally hundreds of women like her can be found working at Hot Dog on a Stick. He then launched into a horrid impression of Al Pacino's character from Scarface. Ratner said, "In Hollywood, you gotta make the money first (Ratner made the international hand gesture for check). Then when you get the money, you get the power (Ratner made the gesture again). Then when you get the power, then you get the women." Ratner then pointed to his girlfriend and added, "If you have a passion for making soulless, loud action films, then you'll probably end up with somebody like her, too. It's easier than you'd think."

I can imagine it all right now. The hallway leading up to Brett Ratner's bedroom lined with MTV Music Video awards, scented candles, rose petals and framed photos that'd feel more home in Brett & Bob Evans' 'Book of Us'. The song above blasting through the Bose Audio system all through out the house; vibrating and rattling the windows. Yet the only thing spoken the entire night probably was, "Just not in my eyes, okay?"

The forthcoming evisceration of New Line Cinema announced yesterday by founding bosses Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne was expected for a while now, but where the pieces would fall was anyone's guess. It still is to some degree, but as the grim news settles in and Time Warner overlord Jeff Bewkes' intentions come to light, we can start parsing the good, bad and the ugly wrought from New Line's demise:

Never one to wile away all of his leisure hours cavorting on a custom-made bed (forget round; this thing is encased in a giant, ceiling-mounted gyroscope), septuagenarian superproducer Robert Evans is forever on the hunt for new ways to extend his brand. His partnership with Oliver Peoples sunglasses is a perfect example: Bob brings the cool, they bring the technical savvy to produce a lens that can repel the UV rays of a tanning bed strong enough to incinerate a 40-50 lb. child, and voilà— a hip new accessories line is born. Evans threw a party in its honor at his Woodland estate, and W magazine was on hand to take in the atmosphere:

Because we know that you've been plagued by disturbing nightmares that The Wolf Man might not begin production on schedule following the announcement that creative-difference-haver Mark Romanek had exited the film at the 11th hour: Universal's search for a director is over! Despite rumors that the studio had fallen crazy-in-hacky-love with a certain visionary, they've instead chosen Joe "Hidalgo/Jurassic Park III" Johnston to deliver their hairy baby on time, dashing all our hopes of a Ratnerian reimagining (i.e., anachronistic—but nonetheless thrilling—lycanthrope car chases) of the project. Relieved of this psychic burden, you may now return to a more restful sleep. [Var]

Following the recent Ain't It Cool report that Universal, desperate to find a director willing to step in on incredibly short notice to replace the recently departed Mark Romanek on The Wolf Man, had already decided that Brett Ratner was the hacky Messiah who could deliver them to the On-Time And Near-Budget Promised Land, comes word that the studio is still performing its due diligence by meeting with other candidates who might not be scared off by having to work with the strike-locked script Romanek developed. Among those THR says Universal is considering for the gig: Frank Darabont, James Mangold, Joe "Hidalgo" Johnston and Bill "Dreamgirls" Condon (!). Even with this report, Ratner still seems like the obvious choice, as he's previously proven he's unafraid to jettison a screenplay the moment it interferes with his blockbuster-making vision. [THR]

It seems that when we briefly mused about a scenario in which curiously hacky hired-gun Brett Ratner might be called upon to take over The Hobbit franchise by a panicked New Line, we regrettably attached the director to the wrong combination of pants-soiling studio and destabilized hairy-protagonist project. Following Mark Romanek's recently announced departure from The Wolf Man, a desperate Universal, perhaps seeking a collaborator with whom "creative differences" will never be a problem as long as a large enough paycheck is signed, will ask Ratner to step in and render his predecessor's original vision unrecognizable, according to Ain't It Cool News:

And you thought it was all James Toback's fault. Wrong-o. Back in 1977, someone with more money than brains gave a then eight-year old Brett Ratner a Panasonic camcorder, effectively launching his career (and irreparably harming the cinema as we knew it). We learned this spicy bit of trivia about the frisky fauxter when we tagged along with our geeky brothers at Gizmodo to a Panasonic "presser" at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas earlier today. Hold your breath, the worst is yet to come.

Following a Savannah Film Festival event at which Brett Ratner was named Rush Hour Sequel Director of the Year by the fest's blue-ribbon panel, the flattered fauxteur decided to take the students in attendance out for a crash course on the only aspect of the cinematic arts he's truly mastered: the part where one hands over all of his footage to an editor, tells him, "Make a movie out of this, would ya, bro?," then embarks on a celebratory search for a titty bar: "Ratner wasn't finished answering the students' questions when the party ended, and led at least a dozen on a pub crawl which involved a caravan of cabs crossing the bridge to South Carolina in search of a topless bar open in the wee hours of Monday morning. It was a valiant, misguided quest, but the students won't soon forget their seminar with Ratner." [P6]

Fans of the original Escape From New York can breathe a sigh of relief, as Brett Ratner has intimated that someone else will be handling the ruination of the John Carpenter classic. We suggest that everyone now start praying that some comic book movie in desperate need of his hacky skillset will come along and make Ratner forget all about how much he loves Sinatra. [AICN]

· We understand why Sharon Osbourne was all whooped up on Ellen, but our money would be on Courtney Love if their feud ever came to blows. If Osbourne had ever taken a look at Love's batshit MySpace blog, she'd know she'd be the one fighting out of her crazy-class.
· This is what happens when you trust a guy named the Sultan of Sleaze with your money.
·We're probably no more than three days away from the announcement that Chris Tucker will star in the remake of Escape from New York.
· A magnificent cock moves on, filling us with indescribable sadness.

· What showbiz name evokes Rat Pack-era Hollywood cool more than any other? That's right: Brett Ratner. The singularly hacky Rush Hour 3 director, continuing his ongoing mission to diminish the legacies of legends whose lifestyles he desperately wishes to emulate, will reteam with screechy muse Chris Tucker for an adaptation of Mr. S: My Life With Frank Sinatra, a tell-all bio about Sinatra's relationship with his valet. "I think [Ratner's] channeling Frank sometimes," says one the book's authors, rolling around in a pile of New Line's option cash. [Variety]
· Dan Rather opens a can containing $70 million worth of legal whoop-ass on CBS, claiming that the network scapegoated him for the Memogate scandal. [THR]
· DreamWorks Animation runs screaming from a May 2009 box office confrontation with James Cameron's Avatar, moving their Monsters Vs. Aliens to a safer Easter '09 release date. [Variety]
· Fox picks up Raffik, a police procedural about a Borat-like Albanian detective dispatched to the US Americas to amuse the LAPD with his observations about the differences in their law enforcement techniques. [THR]
· The premiere numbers for Kelsey Grammer's Back to You, Gordon "Scorched Bollocks" Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and the New Mexico Child Welfare Department's Kid Nation are uniformly "solid" but "unspectacular." Also, as expected, plenty of female teenagers watched Gossip Girl. [Variety]

· In case you haven't heard, Jon Stewart is going to host the Oscars again. Obligatory press release self-deprecation follows: "I'm thrilled to be asked to host the Academy Awards for the second time because, as they say, the third time's the charm." [Variety, THR]
· NBC greenlights a pilot for Rat Entertainment's cop drama Blue Blood, a project that will see the collision of irresistible party-boy force Brett Ratner with immovable rock-star object Ben Silverman, unleashing a wave of good-time energy that will likely reduce all of Hollywood to smoldering rubble. [Variety]
· The next time Hell's Kitchen star Gordon Ramsay sears his scrotum on a hot oven, it will be an Endeavor agent who holds the bowl of ice water into which he can dip his still-sizzling testes. [THR]
· Fight Club alter-egos Brad Pitt and Edward Norton reteam for Universal's State of Play, a feature adaptation of the British miniseries about a journalist's investigation into the murder of a congressman's girlfriend. We're unfamiliar with the source material, so we won't promise any scenes in which the duo strip off their shirts and stage a much-clamored-for FC rematch. [Variety]
· The Weinstein Company's $2-2.5 million purchase of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, ahem, reanimates the Toronto Fest market. [THR]