While things certainly seemed touch-and-go for superproducing genius-vampire Brian Grazer and writer/starter war bride Gigi Levangie for a few, uncomfortable months, today's Variety brings hope that their relationship is once again stable; after all, the couple that bankrolls the wife's Jesus-starring romantic comedy pitches for a high six-figure sum together, stays together. Var and Levangie Grazer explain The Prodigal Son, the latest acquisition of eternally supportive husband Brian's Imagine Entertainment:

The National Board of Review makes the first official penetration of the awards season orgy, naming Letters from Iwo Jima best film, Martin Scorcese best director, Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren best actors, and Volver best foreign film. Brace yourself for the imminent deluge of awards and nominations announcements that may or may not have anything to do with a film's Oscar chances over the coming weeks. [Variety]
The Grammy nominations are out! And? These are probably the only words we're going to write about them: Mary J. Blige, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Justin Timberlake are all multiple nominees. [THR/Billboard
At yesterday's HRTS luncheon, showrunners of scripted programming gathered together to bitch about reality television and the absurdity of network censorship guidelines concerning the number of pelvic thrusts one may display during sci-fi show sex scenes. (Answer: as many as you can squeeze in without depicting "rhythmic sex.") [Variety]
· This article about the five actors who've joined Paul Haggis' next directoring effort, In the Valley of Elah/The Untitled Paul Haggis Project, makes absolutely no mention of Crash or its Oscar victory. For a very happy moment, we allowed ourselves to believe the win was just a very bad dream. And yes, we're still carrying around that pain. [THR]
Imagine's Brian Grazer chooses Spike Lee as the directorial vessel through which the superproducer can explore the L.A. riots in dramatic form, signing on to produce L.A. Riots for Universal. Negotiations are ongoing as to whether he can convince his director to bill the movie as "A Brian Grazer (with Spike Lee) Joint." [Variety]

· It still hasn't totally sunk in that Tom Cruise is going to be running United Artists. We think we all still need some time with this one. [Variety, THR]
Robert De Niro and 50 Cent are in "final negotiations" to star as partners in cop thriller New Orleans, a project that is screaming out to be immediately reimagined as a Lethal Weapon-style buddy comedy. [THR]
Producer Brian Grazer, Universal, and a dump truck full of cash are close to convincing Spike Lee that a sequel to seemingly self-contained bank heist flick Inside Man is a good idea. [Variety]
Madonna-founded Maverick Films is suing a film production company for stealing its ideas for a movie Maverick is making on the Stanford Prison Experiment, which they themselves originally appropriated from a Psychology 101 college textbook. [THR]
Universal's Rogue Pictures will distribute legendary video-game-adapting hack Paul W.S. Anderson's Castlevania movie. [Variety]

A Defamer reader grew momentarily confused upon receiving their latest issue of National Geographic: What on Earth was the officially sanctioned portrait of Hollywood superproducer Brian Grazer doing on a magazine that usually covers the kinds of far-reaching and globally significant topics that Grazer himself regularly mines for Oscar gold? The answer, of course, lay in plain view, with a subhed that read "3.3-million-year-old bones discovered," which merely hinted at the sumptuous payoff that lay inside: 13 full-color pages of the most exciting paleontological discovery to come along in a while, featuring a perfect specimen of what researchers are now calling the "Earliest Producer," found lodged for undisturbed millennia at the discovery site, a corner table at The Grill on the Alley.

Universal beats out DreamWorks, Warner Independent and the Weinsteins for the movie rights to Peter Morgan's play Frost/Nixon, whose ideas Ron Howard will eventually dilute for mass consumption and producer Brian Grazer will claim as his own. [Variety]
Cate Blanchett is attached to star in the adaptation of "graphic memoir" Cancer Vixen: A True Story, in which she will depict cartoonist Marisa Acocella Marchetto, who "wore killer shoes to chemo sessions and strove to get married on time." [THR]
Viacom is cutting the salary of skeletal executive presence Sumner Redstone to bring it in line with that of the officers he recently installed to run the company, but Redstone will be able to boost his base compensation considerably through bonuses for cutting ties with too-expensive movie stars or unexpectedly firing popular underlings. [Variety/AP]
Pirates of the Caribbean finishes first overseas for the 11th time in 12 weekends, boosted by continuing support in Pacific Island territories in which Johnny Depp is worshipped as the demihuman incarnation of Toronga, a million-year-old, gay-pirate god. [THR]
ABC's Sunday ratings were still strong despite moving Grey's Anatomy to Thursday, with Desperate Housewives drawing nearly 24 million viewers eager to see what mirthlessly outrageous antics the ladies of Wisteria Lane will be up to in their third season. [Variety]

SAG looks to increase dues for the first time in seven years, a move that could put an unwelcome financial burden on your favorite bartender, valet parking attendant, or Starbucks barista in between slow-arriving residual checks. [Variety]
· On fledgling network The CW's premiere night, America's Next Top Model carries them to a win in the only demographic they truly care about, 18-34 year-olds, as the kids obviously put in the effort to figure out which channel is the new home of Tyra Banks' trademark sassiness. (Disclosure: We still have no idea what channel The CW landed on here in L.A. We suppose we'll figure it out eventually.) [THR]
· Adorably quirky superproducer Brian Grazer's Imagine TV is hooking up with the FBI to develop a drama about its role in the post-9/11 government. In the meantime, The Graze and his partners are hoping that new CBS series Shark will be a hit and make them incrementally richer. [Variety]
Justin Long will join Bruce Willis in the cast of the fourth Die Hard flick, Live Free or Die Hard, playing an obnoxious Mac enthusiast who scoffs at Willis' every frustrated attempt to download pictures from his digital camera onto his PC. [THR]
Thursday night ABC newcomer Grey's Anatomy defeats CBS timeslot stalwart CSI in both overall and key demographic viewership, leaving Les Moonves no choice but to promise his network affiliates that he plans on having the entire Grey's cast murdered by the end of the month. [Variety]

· There are many good reasons to watch the above video, but the best of them is that the Olsen Twins are even creepier when rendered as puppets.
A previous professional experience with Wentworth Miller leaves blogger Paul Davidson completely unable to believe the guy could orchestrate a prison break.
Director Sydney Pollack offers our pal Andrew Krucoff the deep cultural insight that L.A. traffic sucks.
Jared Leto thinks blogs are a fad on the level of parachute pants. We always suspected that Jordan Catalano would grow up to be a trenchant media critic.
Superproducer Brian Grazer: Fan of avant garde art or secret brassiere fetishist? Developing...
· Please, Lord, never again make us contemplate the following four words: Rosie O'Donnell sex scene.

Radar has awoken from a nine-month hibernation to relaunch its website today, celebrating the rebirth with the publication of its poll of the "industry's heaviest hitters" that it first started researching back around the time of its 1981 "Ron Howard Washed Up At 27?" issue. The survey doesn't really contain any surprises: Howard is nice, Brett Ratner's a hack, Russell Crowe has a temper problem, and CAA's partners are the agents you'd most like to have devouring babies on your behalf. Among Radar's "winners" is Imagine Entertainment superproducer Brian Grazer, whose signature "Produced By Brian Grazer, From An Idea Brian Grazer Had While Distracted By A Shiny Object During A Meet-And-Greet With Stephen Hawking, And Directed By A Guy Brian Grazer Hand-Selected to Execute Brian Grazer's Uncompromising Vision" movie credit seems to have rankled some of his peers:

After four empty, unsatisfying months cruising Hollywood's swinging hotspots that were occasionally punctuated by romantic, old-timey bicycle rides by the Malibu shore, superproducer Brian Grazer has taken out a reconciliation notice in Page Six to let the town know that he's officially off the market again:

Now that Angelina Jolie's getting back in the acting game, Brad Pitt knows he better fill up his calendar so that he's not left home watching the kids. Pitt will star in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button after he wraps up his time pallin' around with the Cloonster on Ocean's Thirteen, then may move on to Universal's State of Play. [Variety]
Imagine's Brian Grazer will produce the family comedy Mr. Machine with Napoleon Dynamite and his brothers for Universal, a project described as "a throwback to the family comedies of the 1980s," and which "revolves around three brainy slackers who build a robot that wants to take over the world." [THR]
Hilary Swank Out Of Ideas: Oscar double-fister Swank will star in a remake of the French thriller Labyrinth, playing yet another cinematic crazy person who might know something about a serial killer. [Variety]
· Fox simultaneously licenses every episode of Arrested Development to MSN, HDNet, and G4, proving they are willing to embrace every AD-related opportunity short of actually producing new episodes. [THR]
· A big high-five to our friends at TVGasm, whose Chenbot mugs are a big hit with automaton Big Brother host Julie Chen and sugar daddy/boss Les Moonves. Another fun fact: Chen calls him "Leslie." [Variety]

Today's sightings item in Page Six includes this exciting update about superproducer Brian Grazer's latest adventures in singledom, in which he entertained an unnamed companion at one of Malibu's finest restaurants:

A little earlier this afternoon, a representative from Imagine Entertainment was in touch to offer us an officially sanctioned photo to use in lieu of the one we'd be featuring alongside nearly every Brian Grazer-related item since September. We understand that this is town in which a premium is placed on individuals always looking their best, and so we're more than happy to share this more artfully lit and flattering photograph (suitable, of course, for framing and puckishly leaving behind in the homes of acquaintances) with our readers. We suggest that you take a moment to print it out to keep handy at your desk; we're the forgetful sort, and should Grazer's less favored, overly taut image somehow reappear on this site, you can easily retrieve the more aesthetically pleasing headshot from a desk draw and hold it over the offending section of your computer monitor.

When a movie studio serves notice that it's received a cost-cutting mandate from its corporate parent by publicly executing a prominent executive and placing her severed head atop a pike outside the Grill on the Alley, everyone in Hollywood, already the job insecurity capital of the world, reflexively reaches for their necks and wonders if they should get a waddle-tuck before their appointment with the guillotine. Today's LAT attempts to capture the wave of heightened paranoia touched off by Disney's announced 650-person Cast Member Massacre by soliciting quotes from producers entering the brave, new world of seemingly routine cost-cutting and layoffs:

If you've put off trying to infiltrate Hyde, the current hottest and most exclusive celebrity-jammed glory hole in all of Hollywood, for fear of winding up collateral damage in a hair-yanking disagreement between Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, it might be time to take the risk. Especially if you're trying to "make it in the business," as Rush & Molloy report that the club's clientele now officially includes high-profile producer types out trolling for tail:

· "Bombastic" Marvel Studios head Avi Arad, the man responsible for making sure that even the most obscure Marvel comic book character had a movie deal somewhere in Hollywood, is leaving the company for a production deal, a move suspiciously timed in the wake of his selling his shares in the company for a reported $60 million. [Variety]
· The Super Bowl nipple fine stands! The FCC decides that it was correct in penalizing CBS $550,000 for the indecent exposure of Janet Jackson's armor-plated areola. [THR]
· The actual news in this story isn't nearly as important as the side-by-side pictures of Topher Grace and Imagine superproducer Brian Grazer, which looks like a worst case scenario rendering of what Grace might look like in 25 years. [Variety]
· CBS supreme leader Les Moonves reassures his network affiliates that they're focused on their on-air programs, promising that their new, token foray into internet content delivery, Innertube, would feature nothing better than low-cost, grainy webcam video of Moonves attending to various personal hygiene tasks or the occasional trip to a Mystic Tanning center. [THR]
· Brad Pitt will hardly have time to enjoy his new baby, as he has to shoot Ocean's 13 this summer and fulfill various promotional duties for Babel and his Jesse James movie in October. You know, if Angie lets him. [Variety]

In today's column, Rush & Molloy celebrate infamously quirky, taut-faced producer Brian Grazer's taste for pranks. While Grazer's trademark trick of surreptitiously inserting a framed picture of himself into his hosts' photo collections is well-documented, we'd never heard of this exciting twist on the Graz'd formula:

According to today's LAT, rather than resort to the shrill protest tactic of picket lines manned by clergy armed with holy-water-filled SuperSoakers, some Christian churches have decided to take The Da Vinci Code's imminent, mass-market blasphemy and make blasphemy-ade. Upbeat, Da Vinci-themed sermons aimed at debunking the message soon to be delivered by cherub-faced emissary of Satan Ron Howard and spikey-haired incubus sidekick Brian Grazer have proved quite popular, and some progressive ministers have adopted even more modern techniques to head off the coming cinematic apostasy at the pass. Reports the Times:

The new era of peace and happiness ushered in by the arrival of the Miracle Baby was far more short-lived than we'd hoped, as today's news that quirky, taut-faced superproducer Brian Grazer has filed for legal separation from wife Gigi once again reminds us that love in Hollywood is a tragically fleeting thing. In the interest of not bringing down this special day with the sadness and recriminations that so often afflict the dissolution of high-profile relationships, we choose instead to commemorate the beginning of their romance, courtesy of Grazer's self-authored bio:

Instead of the usual, brief meditation on the oppressive drudgery of the coming work week, how about some positivity this morning? Find your nearest coworker, and while locked in a big bear hug, assure each other that this week can't possibly be as bad as the last.

The WOW Report continues its groundbreaking work in the premiere audience diagramming sciences with an analysis of last Wednesday's Fun With Dick and Jane screening. As their above chart demonstrates, the seating arrangement was carefully engineered by producer Brian Grazer to enhance the already amplified phenomenon of a premiere crowd's laugh-response, an idea no doubt hatched in an intense thinktank session between Grazer and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking (a meeting brokered, of course, by the always-innovative mogul's cultural attaché). While the early results were promising, the process is far from perfected, so expect that Grazer's next event will feature a sonically reflective material surrounding the seating area, which will theoretically produce an eardrum-bursting echo chamber of sycophantic guffaws.