When the marketing team for Knocked Up conceived its cute Make-Your-Own-Bastard web game, they couldn't have foreseen the horrifying parental combinations that the Hurty Elbow blog would soon feed into it. We hope that when they come across the dead-eyed spawn resulting from the commingling of superproducers Brian Grazer and Jerry Bruckheimer or hacky directors Brett Ratner and Michael Bay, they realize that their once-fun project has been hopelessly corrupted and destroy the infernal apparatus that produced such abominations.

Because our secret publicity contract with frighteningly handsome, genius-level superproducer Brian Grazer mandates that we draw attention to his every appearance across a variety of media, we note a curious sketch from this weekend's SNL season finale, in which host Zach Braff is harassed by the obsessed assistant (whom, we fear, might be a dude) of one "Brian Gold," a powerful and spikey-haired Hollywood executive. For reasons that are left unexplained in the skit, "Gold" is subletting Grazer's Imagine Entertainment office space, possibly to help defray the cost of the company's exorbitant Beverly Hills rent while the intellectually voracious executive criss-crosses the globe in search of minds to plunder with his creepy powers. After the jump, NBC's official YouTube clip of the sketch, curiously described as "Melissa and Zach Braff make a connection in Brian Grazer's office."

A week ago, Page Six offered us a preview of Russell Crowe's "Ode to a Beautiful Mind," a love poem commissioned by Time to commemorate creative soulmate Brian Grazer's inclusion on the magazine's list of 100 most influential people, excerpting a stirring verse celebrating the superproducer's otherworldy soul-hearing and alchemist powers. The complete version of Crowe's heartsong is now available on Time.com, but because we fear reproducing it in full would be too much beauty for any of us to bear, we offer only its graceful final stanzas:

· Frank Langella will reprise his stage role as Nixon for Imagine's big screen version of Peter Morgan's celebrated play, Frost/Nixon. The casting suggests director Ron Howard will remain true to the source material, though that doesn't completely rule out Akiva Goldsman being brought in for an eleventh-hour rewrite that incorporates several make-believe characters that exist only in the disgraced President's paranoid imagination. [Variety]
· In further Imagine news, Ridley Scott signs on to direct Russell Crowe in Nottingham, the "Robin Hood but where the Sheriff's the good guy" movie, hoping the two can reignite Gladiator, not-so-much A Good Year, magic. [Variety]

In an upcoming issue of Time magazine, longtime Imagine Entertainment collaborator Russell Crowe confirms our greatest fears: Superproducer Brian Grazer's freaky, otherworldly powers are growing:

When last we encountered superproducer Brian Grazer. he was at the center of a media maelstrom resulting from his selfless desire to unscrew the top of his singularly coiffed head and share with the world an unobstructed view of the constantly churning works within through an ill-fated guest-editing stint on the LA Times Sunday Current section, but today's Var brings news that Grazer has quickly shaken off the scandal and gotten back to what he does best: finding material for Imagine Entertainment partner Ron Howard to chew up and regurgitate into a form easily digestible by the moviegoing masses. The just-announced project is a remake of 1970's Colossus: The Forbin Project, the tale of the government supercomputer controlling America's nuclear arsenal achieving malevolent sentience and plunging the world into chaos (think Wargames meets, um, Wargames), which Grazer plans to reimagine as a somewhat more personal narrative: His Colossus: The Spring Street Project will be the story of a revenge-obsessed Hollywood producer's cybernetically enhanced brain hacking into the mainframe of a major metropolitan newspaper and erasing its entire archives as payback for its refusal to publish some essays he solicited from some intellectual friends.

Late yesterday afternoon, Imagine philosopher-king Brian Grazer's introduction to his ill-fated Current section was saved from the oblivion to which it was dispatched by the LAT's cautious publisher, whose decision to kill the stunt-edit called down from the media heavens a shitstorm arguably equal in filthy intensity to the one he was trying to avoid in the first place. Today, Grazer's statement on the matter is circulating in reports about the controversy (words probably lovingly composed by the same publicists who got him into this mess), hinting at the delights the intellectually voracious superproducer of easily digestible populist entertainments had planned for the Times' readership this Sunday morning. From THR:

With the LAT's unfortunate decision to callously discard all the hard work superproducing guest editor Brian Grazer had put into his masterfully curated Sunday Current section just because the paper caught a faint whiff of possible publicist-related impropriety, we feared that the words of introduction that Hollywood's Grand Inquisitor of Interesting People so painstakingly dictated to his assistants for later transcription might be lost to history. (Luckily for his support staff, their notoriously quixotic boss abandoned a poorly conceived plan to have his introductory remarks on his editorial mission pressed into a clay tablet in cuneiform—an idea that grew out of a brief obsession with producing an action-thriller set in ancient Sumeria—ultimately tasking them with translating his scattered thoughts into comprehensible English instead.) But thanks to LA Observed (and someone on the inside with access to the Times's editing system), Grazer's Lost Introduction has been preserved for as long as these blogowebs exist:

The dominoes in Grazergate have fallen, and fallen quickly: The paper's publisher this morning announced it would kill Brian Grazer's blockbuster Sunday Current section to avoid the appearance of undue publicist influence in the superproducer/intellectual dynamo's coronation as guest editor-king, prompting embattled, flack-entangled section editor Andres Martinez to quickly resign, and the Times Ouroboros to hastily swallow its deliciously scandal-tipped tail by immediately posting a story about the resignation. The real victim in all of this is Grazer, whose selfless desire to share with the public an all-consuming, lifelong curiosity about Stuff has now been tainted by controversy, with the pages upon which the precious words he so lovingly curated—but is tragically unable to read—were printed soon to be recycled into Best Buy circulars advertising specially discounted A Beautiful Mind DVDs.

· Famously temperamental thespian Russell Crowe will make his directorial debut on a feature adaptation of the documentary Bra Boys, about three brothers who started an underground surf movement in Sydney, during which the novice helmer will learn precisely how much damage a hurled megaphone can do to a mouthy PA's skull. Imagine's Brian Grazer to superproduce. [Ed.note—Since an update to this morning's Grazergate story is possible at some point today, we're forced to spare you the headshot at this time due to image bandwidth issues that could arise from its repeated posting.] [Variety]
· News Corp. and NBC Universal announce that they will partner with Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL to create a copyright-friendly online video distribution system that will crush the YouTubes. "A game changer!" cackles News Corp. CEO Peter Chernin while high-fiving colleague Jeff Zucker of NBCU, giddy over the untold millions of shareholder dollars they'll spend on an ultimately inferior product. [THR]
· Emboldened by the success of series like Heroes and Deal or No Deal, NBC president Kevin Reilly is confident he'll get more respect in today's meeting with media buyers than he did a year ago, when he was subjected to a humiliating round of wedgies, swirlies, and "Kick Me! My Networks Sux!" signs taped to his back by bullies whose money he was desperate to take. [Variety]
· Jet Li is in negotiations to play the bad guy in the China-set, totally unnecessary third The Mummy movie. [THR]
· The West Coast-based Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (the organization behind the Real Emmys) and East-Coasted National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (who handle the Daytime, or Fake, Emmys) are at war! At issue: some profoundly boring shit involving who gets to give out broadband awards no one will care about for 10 years. [Variety]

This morning brings terrible—terrible!—news for the Hollywood community, who had been universally atwitter about the Very Special Guest-Edited Sunday Current Section superproduced by Brian Grazer that was scheduled for this weekend's LAT, opinion pages so jam-packed with action, adventure, and quirky material reflecting Grazer's legendarily restless, spongelike intellect that early tracking projected the paper to gross nearly $40 million in its opening frame. Tragically, the blockbuster project is now threatened with cancellation since it has come to light (Grazergate™ courtesy of LA Observed) that the editor of Times' editorial page is dating a publicist whose firm represents Imagine Entertainment, Grazer's movie studio/thinktank hybrid, a potential conflict that has many in the newsroom lighting their hair on fire, poking out their eyes with letter openers, and loudly wailing about having to toil in a town dominated by an entertainment industry bent on hijacking local journalistic institutions for their own nefarious, guest-editing ends.

• LAT will spend the day pulling out hair over Brian Grazer guest-edit; their editorial page editor is dating the 42 West publicist who's handled projects for Grazer's Imagine. Straight version: [LAO] Dishy version: [DHD]
  

• The Post has never heard of Whitewater. [NYP]
  

Perhaps disappointed that David Geffen's bid to buy the paper and transform it into the pulpy megaphone he's always craved never really went anywhere, the LAT is doing what it can to make sure that the voices of the entertainment industry's biggest personalities are heard, inviting Imagine's Brian Grazer to superproduce the inaugural edition of an already doomed a bold guest-editor experiment for its Sunday Current opinion section. So what exactly will be required of the new Times editor-for-a-day? A press release can explain while we dab up the bit of melted brain matter that's trickling from our ear:

· Var chief Peter Bart pens yet another memo to Tom Cruise, this time encouraging his successor at United Artists to ignore the skepticism of the press, take a big swig of some Oprah-endorsed positivity Kool-Aid, and realize that he's not the only one in this town trying to figure out how to run a studio. [Variety]
· Spunky test-pattern alternative MyNetworkTV will kick of a new schedule on Monday, shifting its focus from cheaply produced telenovelas that no one wants to watch to low-cost reality programming audiences will be eager to ignore. [THR]
· Clint Eastwood may direct and Angelina Jolie is in talks to star in The Changeling for Universal, the story of a woman who suspects that the abducted son that's eventually returned to her is not actually her child—material that the actress instantly connected with because of a paranoid fear she's been harboring that careless partner Brad Pitt lost Maddox at a Ralphs a year ago and has been trying to pass off another Cambodian orphan as their beloved tyke ever since. Imagine's Brian Grazer is also on board to superproduce the shit out of this one. [Variety]
· ABC elevates Ellen Pompeo to $200,000 per episode, while Grey's Anatomy co-stars James T. Pickens Jr, Chandra Wilson, Justin Chambers, and TR Knight are expected to get raises to $125k. No word on whether Isaiah Washington's successful completion of gayhab will earn him a similar reward, but should he be passed over on this round of renegotiations, he plans to recoup some of the withheld salary bump by stealing Knight's lunch money each day. [THR]
· USA pays $11 million for the rights to air Borat for five years starting in 2009, a relatively low sum due to the fact that the network will be forced to pixelate Ken Davitian's hairy, suffocating anus during the movie's iconic wrestling scene. [Variety]

· Imagine's Brian Grazer will superproduce an utterly unneeded "American version" of the film Cache for Universal, from which partner Ron Howard will drain all nuance by "amp[ing] up the suspense and consequences" should he choose to direct it. [Variety]
· Satellite Radio Mergermania! Sirius and XM announce their intentions to combine into a single corporate entity—if the FCC approves a move that would result in the unholy pairing of Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern on a single provider. [THR]
· In a move that should surprise only those reading the trades for the first time today after waking up from a three-year coma, Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures are going ahead with a fourth Saw movie, timed for a Halloween weekend release later this year. [Variety]
· Last night's episode of Heroes remained "scorching hot" in the 18-49 demographic; somewhat less engulfed in Nielsen's flame is Studio 60, which had its second consecutive week of record-low ratings. (We TiVo'd S60, so we're unable to make a reference to how Matt's battle with his pill-popping, hallucinated alter ego turned out. We regret being part of Sorkin's time-shifting problem.) [THR]
· Ghost Rider's total take over the three-day weekend is $51.5 million; that's the all-time Presidents Day weekend record, if you're into relatively meaningless box office statistics. [Variety]

Universal has hardly had time to refuel the Brinks trunk since it dumped out a pile of cash to acquire the rights to the inspiring story of displaced, soccer-playing kids from war-torn nations it hopes to one day reimagine as Kicking & Screaming II: The Fugees, but it's already emerged triumphant from another bidding war, beating out New Line and Warner Bros. for the script Nottingham by coughing up "seven figures" to its writers (the creators of recently canceled Showtime series Sleeper Cell) and betting another $20 million that mild-mannered character actor Russell Crowe (A Good Year) will shine when given a chance to finally be the center of attention of a big-budget project. The script's high-concept of "Robin Hood, but where the Sheriff of Nottingham is the good guy" is so "now why didn't I think of that and become a millionaire overnight?" simple that Imagine's Brian Grazer, who'll be superproducing for Universal, will be overheard at various cocktail parties over the next month telling transfixed conversation partners, "You know, I always felt in my gut that Nottingham was misunderstood and Robin Hood was kind of a dick, but I knew that if I waited long enough, someone would finally tap into my consciousness and put it all together."

After yesterday's wall-to-wall orgy of Golden Globes coverage, we've been resisting a return to the ceremony, hoping to avoid a flashback of the nightmares we suffered of being suffocated by Ken Davitian's Best Supporting Anus that might be induced by further references to Sacha Baron Cohen's victory speech. But we think that our Globes-free morning has probably liberated us from that hairy, strangling sphincter's grip on our unconscious mind, so we can now share this exchange overheard at the event by The Envelope's Kudos Crasher, in which two of show business's most accomplished egotists narrowly averted engaging in a tie-breaking dick-measuring contest after reaching a stalemate on a brief Walk of Fame placement showdown:

While porcupine-becoiffed superproducer Brian Grazer (don't worry—we won't use the headshot) has long been developing a big screen treatment of James Brown's life story with the cooperation of the legend himself, just two days after the singer's death comes a report that Spike Lee has signed on to direct. And although Grazer wasn't necessarily looking for a Hollywood ending, something about Brown hip-gyrating off this mortal coil on Christmas Day makes for a satisfyingly spectacular conclusion to the life of a Soul Messiah:

Hi, gang! As even the most of godless of Hollywood heathens is well aware, Monday is Christmas, the day when Christians celebrate the birth of the Messiah by giving each other things they bought on sale at Target, drinking enough rum-spiked glasses of eggnog to make spending time with their families seem bearable, and weeping uncontrollably at overrated Frank Capra movies. In recognition of this sacred occasion, we won't be updating on Monday, but posting will resume on Tuesday. In other schedule-related news, I'll be on vacation until January 2nd starting right about...now, but Seth will be sticking around to ensure that no Blackberried Lindsay Lohan manifesto about her plans to enlist Santa Claus in her ongoing image rehabilitation campaign goes uncovered.