What you can't see in this amazing gallery of unhappy people at Disney World: bitter, lame-duck CEO Michael Eisner trying to sabotage his Orlando operation by sneaking around and jabbing park visitors in the genitals with a salad fork as their pictures are snapped. He'll hit his Anaheim fun-factory next week.
The Hollywood Reporter sits down with fresh-faced Fox head Peter Liguori to discuss his first week at his new gig, predecessor Gail Berman's legacy, and the creative culture of his network:
· We're linking to the THR story about yesterday's Universal shake-up (yeah, we know, it's old news) instead of Var's because they have a hotter pic of Mary Parent on the front page of their website. [THR]
· Mark Wahlberg is in negotiations to play Eagles-fan-turned-Eagles-player Vince Papale for Disney, in the soon to be renamed Invincible. It's just like Rudy, but with lucrative NFL tie-ins! [Variety]
· Melanie Griffith will get to show off her comedy chops and remaining control of her facial muscles as a member of the cast of a Kohan-Mutchnick comedy pilot for the WB, the tentatively- titled Our Will & Grace Lightning Will Strike Twice, We Promise. [THR]
· Fresh off a winning turn as a tone-deaf, angry Moses here in LA, Val Kilmer signs up for a theatrical version of The Postman Always Rings Twice in London's West End. [Variety]
· The Masters and the NCAA Tournament might help CBS threaten Fox's American Idol-powered hegemony in the key 18-49 demographic. Expect Fox to announce plans to run Idol three times a night from now until the end of the ratings period. [Variety]
Attention employees on the Fox lot: Hopefully you've already filled your bellies with the latest inspired creation of your co-workers in marketing, the stacks of "Pam Cakes" offered at the Commissary and New Cafe to celebrate the premiere of the sitcom that's not exclusively about Pamela Anderson's rack, for the offer will have expired by the time you read this. If you missed out on the breakfast, don't panic. You'll have a second chance at lunch, where the intramural promotion fun will continue in a somewhat more literal (and healthy!) fashion, with a delicious melons-with-cherries-on-top bar.
Today's upheaval at Universal has already shaken loose an interesting rumor (obviously, we can't confirm it) that we're happy to pass along for cheerful discussion. If the lovingly-rendered graphic accompanying this post didn't already tip you off, we've heard chatter that Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment is going to dump Universal for Brad Grey's talent-chasing loose wallet at the New Paramount™. At the risk of being trite: Good times.
The rumor that's burning up our inbox like the proverbial unchecked blaze in a dry, wooded area is that changes are imminent at Universal, where we hear vice-chairmen tag-team Scott Stuber and Mary Parent are out* for the classic "producing deal," and Donna Langley is in as president of production. Of course, we're always the last to know these things, and the entire town was probably already bored of the story by the time they scalded their assistants with their second cup of coffee this morning.
· Hollywood's out-of-work writers are given a ray of hope as scripted series seem to be selling at this year's Mip TV market in Cannes. Pull your heads out of the ovens and start wistfully browsing the WGA health plan brochure, boys, help may be on the way. [Variety]
· More Mip: "Not so fast, Yankees!" says some German media mogul we've never heard of. "Most of your puny American shows don't carry the market share that my powerful broadcasting company requires, and the DVD format has changed the game. Sprechen to the hand, Hollywood! I am so angry I've lost all command of my mother tongue!" [THR]
· Les Moonves brings to bear his infernal powers on the Masters, rigging it for an exciting Tiger Woods win, and boosting the ratings for CBS. [Variety]
· Riffling through the junk drawer of pilot casting, we discover that Shannen Doherty is in negotiations to star in the UPN comedy pilot Wingwoman. [THR]
· Alfre Woodard joins the cast of Desperate Housewives for next season, as a "seemingly normal" woman who eventually learns to despise Teri Hatcher for all of the media attention she receives as a stand-in for the show's fine ensemble cast. [Variety]
In the normal course of the business day (such that it is in Defamer HQ, where we've been awake for two hours but still can't find our pants), we'd probably quickly skim our way through a newspaper piece on a relatively mundane subject like the corporate aftermath of the recently completed sale of MGM to Sony. But when the LAT deftly works a reference to MGM's leonine mascot into its lede (we've been gleefully guilty of the same strategy), we're magically transported to the Hollywood jungle of our imagination:
· Details/rumors about the new-look, Weinstein-free, Disneyfied Miramax are leaking out: It will have an annual budget of $350 million, release only 6-10 films a year, get cut down to about 50 employees, keep its HQ in NY, and whoever gets to lead the studio will be Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook's bitch. Sounds like a party! [Variety]
· Kate Winslet is in talks to star in New Line's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel Little Children, and will play a suburban mom who boinks a stay-at-home dad. You know, like Desperate Housewives, but without the stars tearing out each other's hair between takes. [THR]
· The New Paramount™ takes a page from the Sherry Lansing recycling playbook, signing up Mummy/Van Helsing hack Steven Sommers to remake When Worlds Collide, the big-object-crashes-into-Earth classic that's already inspired asteroids-fucking-shit-up flicks like Deep Impact and Armageddon. But unlike the old, cheap Paramount guard, Brad Grey's team will throw a lot of money at the rehash. [Variety]
· UPN gives "ratings-challenged" Veronica Mars an early pick-up; ABC keeps Grey's Anatomy safe behind its Desperate Housewives lead-in, bumping the already-renewed Boston Legal into another timeslot that will inevitably lack the same ratings protection. [THR]
· DreamWorks enables Beyonce's acting ambitions, negotiating with her to star in the adaptation of Dreamgirls. [Variety]
With his will sufficiently weakened by the rigors of spewing 80-point news headlines for hours on end, Sploid co-editor (and one-time Defamer guest editor) Choire Sicha was persuaded to spend some quality time observing superflack/documentarian Dan Klores in the wild for the LAT. Now that the master spinner has turned his Dan Klores Communications into the go-to image rehabilitation factory for celebrities whose only other choice is the sweet release of a botched sleeping pill overdose, he's indulging his love of movies by directing docs like Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, and finds himself in the interesting position of having a publicist of his own:
The financial dart that Sony fired into the hindquarters of MGM's once-proud lion months ago has finally taken effect; the Japanese conglomerate can now officially bestride its sleeping feline form and pump away without fear of being bitten. After months of regulatory foofaraw, the acquisition of the studio is complete. Studio executives waiting to cash in their multimillion dollar severance packages and head off to exotic locales to "find themselves" are free to book their flights, while their assistants prepare for their unemployment filings and re-learn the joys of Ramen noodles. Let the layoffs begin. If you're interested in the details (we're not, frankly, Happy Hour is too close), the press release follows:
· Desperate Housewives, 24, and Lost have been successful overseas, thrilling international audiences in a way they haven't experienced since David Hasselhoff stapled a merkin to his chest and donned a red bathing suit. [Variety]
· While other media conglomerates look to get leaner and meaner through deconsolidation, Rupert Murdoch is happy to have his News Corp continue to bloat with further expansion. He's inching ever closer to his goal of having ten generations of heirs wipe themselves only with crisp hundred-dollar bills. (The help will use the wrinkled ones.) [THR]
· "Newsies converge on Vatican City." With a critical mass of priests gathering for the pope's funeral, the newsies don't want to see the altar boys getting all the action. [Variety]
· Summer is for remakes: The Pink Panther's release is moved to August 5th, where it will do battle with the similarly original Dukes of Hazzard flick.[Variety]
· George Clooney may join Cate Blanchett and his Section Eight producing partner Steven Soderbergh (who'll direct) to make The Good German, the story of "an American journalist who is sent to cover the Allied summit meeting that will carve out control of post-World War II Germany." If the deal is consummated, this will mark the fifth time that Clooney and Soderbergh have made beautiful love to each other across the camera. [THR]
· Film festival shocker: American-made movies will run roughshod over Cannes. [Variety]
· MTV announces the launch of its Overdrive web-only channel, finally servicing the needs of OCD-addled teens who need to see some rides pimped rightfuckingnow. [THR]
· OK, we're not kidding around anymore, MGM: Just pick a new fucking James Bond already, even if it's gotta be that British guy that no one here's ever heard of. It takes less time to pick a Pope, and he's got much cooler clothes. [Variety]
· Malcolm in the Middle nerd Frankie Muniz really stretches himself by signing up to play a computer geek in the teen horror flick Stay Alive. People really don't realize how hard that nerd-to-geek transition is for an actor. [THR]
· Maxim magazine, NBC, and Dimension Films enter into a mutually-beneficial, cross-promotional whoring arrangement. Coming soon: Jeff Zucker and Bob Weinstein tangled in a sweat-soaked, semi-clothed embrace on the cover of June's mag. [Variety]
· Chairman Kevin Martin "softens" the FCC's stance on regulating cable TV by issuing a darling ultimatum: Police yourself and we won't have to do it for you. Government regulation has rarely felt so warm and fuzzy! It's like an Ugg boot on the windpipe! [Variety]
· Drew Barrymore's Flower Films drops Columbia Pictures like Tom Green once his career went cold, finding a new home at Warner Brothers. [THR]
· Spike Lee realizes that he probably needs Denzel Washington to make a movie that isn't universally hated, casts him to star in Inside Man. [Variety]
· Michael Bay may direct the Stephen Spielberg-produced live-action Transformers movie for DreamWorks and Paramount. A hack director and a beloved children's cartoon from the 80's—this might be crazy enough to work! The project provides ample opportunities to things to needlessly explode. [Variety]
·The resurgent ABC picks up Alias, Lost, Boston Legal and Desperate Housewives for next season. Like they weren't going to pick up Housewives, even if the cast has gone batshit insane? [THR]
· ABC anchor Peter Jennings announces that he has lung cancer, but will remain on the desk while he undergoes treatment. ABC News president David Westin reacts to the news by making perhaps the most inappropriate analogy in the history of broadcasting: "Peter's been given a tough assignment." [THR]
· Graham King, producer of The Aviator and Gangs of New York, signs first-look deal with Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, our primitive minds are too smooth to comprehend the domino-effect this move will have on King's Initial Entertainment Group and its relationships with various A-list actors' vanity production companies. [Variety]
· Sean Connery gets another crack at donning James Bond's tuxedo, as he'll do voiceover for the video game version of From Russia with Love. Come to think of it, it would be pretty pathetic if he actually wears the tuxedo to a voiceover session. Or if he gratuitously bares his chest hair for the sound engineers. [THR]
· Al Gore finally reveals his cable network, Current, which will feature "original public affairs and entertainment programming produced by and directed at young people" who have a thirst for boredom that not even CSPAN can quench. [Variety]
· After 10 years of our spectacularly successful efforts to avoid viewing even a single episode of the series, this season of JAG will be its last. Goodbye, old friend. [Variety]
· Variety celebrates the Pope's "theatrical" flair and claims he was "as much of a global pop-culture icon as Michael Jackson in his heyday." We suppose the publisher wouldn't pay for a plane ticket to Rome and a bag of rocks to toss at the pontiff's body. [Variety]
· BET is developing new series for the network, including their own, completely original Apprentice knock-off featuring Damon Dash. [THR]
· After months of breathless anticipation, the Fox Reality network is finally ready to launch in May. Finally, the country's 24-hour-a-day hunger for bastards to finally meet the parents that abandoned them as children will be sated! [Variety]
· Director Peter Jackson's completely plausible claim that he's shooting back-to-back King Kong sequels alongside the first installment in New Zealand was merely an elaborate April Fool's Day prank. Don't worry, kids, Universal will shoot the inevitable sequels at a later date in a fashion that will waste as much money as possible. [THR]
· The assumed-dead Yes Dear's surprising success filling the schlubby-husband-with-hot-wife sitcom hole left by the flop Center of the Universe in CBS's schlubby-husband-with-hot-wife schedule might earn the series a new episode order. [Variety]
· Feeding tubes are red-hot right now. The Pope's deteriorating health and Terri Schiavo's death provided a tube-related field day for the news media yesterday. Today, CBS has announced plans to rush a Schiavo biopic to air during May sweeps, with Keri Russell to star as America's tragic heroine and Dean Cain as the husband who wants to let her die in peace. The net anxiously awaits the Pope's death to announce the casting of Ben Kingsley as the Holy Father. [Variety]
· Tired of making quirky comedies that are enjoyed by a handful of Spanking the Monkey incest fanboys, David O. Russell, the headlockingest director in Tinseltown, teams up with comedy hearthrob Vince Vaughn for a shot-by-shot slapstick remake of Saving Private Ryan. [THR]
· In a shocking move for fem-centric cabler Lifetime, recently-acquitted star Robert Blake is named CEO of the network. A press release announcing the unexpected hiring featured the tough-talking thesp-turned-exec vowing to "shut up them puking, Valerie Bertinelli-wannabe breast cancer whiners, or they're gonna get one in the back of the head between the antipasti and the spaghetti, if you know what I mean." [Variety]
· ER hearthrob Noah Wyle announces that he's leaving the show that made blood-splattered white labcoats the must-have fashion of 1996 after this season. Wyle plans to rejoin former castmate Eriq LaSalle in a touring musical theater production in which the two actors perform a dub-reggae version of the Jackson/McCartney smash "Say, Say, Say" at rural high schools throughout the country. [THR]
· Seth Green signs up to have his genitals sandblasted off for Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan's new NBC pilot, Dry-Humping Eunuchs. [Variety]
The terror that had gripped the Fox lot during the height of the "Fox Leg" mystery hasn't yet subsided. An operative fears that yet another boot-related incident may again trouble Rupert Murdoch's already worried minions: "I found this boot on the Fox lot next to the old NYPD Blue Stages this morning. Considering recent events surrounding boots and the Fox lot, I'm a bit concerned for my well-being. I didn't see a severed leg in this one, but I'm on the look-out."
· Ted Koppel quits Nightline...in December. Can't anyone quit the old-fashioned way, where they storm off the set in an expletive-laden huff, punching their executive producer in the jaw? People have no sense of what makes a good story these days. We blame the bloggers. [Variety, THR]
· Paramount shocker! Chairman Brad Grey thinks newly-minted president Gail Berman will do a bang-up job in her new position! [THR]
· "'I recognize that there is skepticism about my background so I come into this with a great deal of humility,' Berman told Daily Variety. 'The bottom line is going to be fostering an environment where creative ideas will transfer into great films.'" Translation: "Fuck all y'all. I am going to crack some fucking skulls the second I step on the lot, and you can't stop me." [Variety]
· The European Commission has approved MGM's sale to Sony. Let the layoffs and the multimillion-dollar severance packages commence. [Variety]
· Tiny, bajillionaire DreamWorks Animation despot Jeffrey Katzenberg assures his company's investors that flooding theaters with eight Shrek sequels a year won't oversaturate the market. As he's prroven over and over again, the public's thirst for green ogre cock is completely unquenchable. [THR]
