· Apple and Amazon prepare for their cyberspace deathmatch in the movie downloading space. Pretend to care about where you will eventually download your copy of Talladega Nights. [Variety]
Katie Couric's maiden CBS Evening News broadcast delivers news timeslot ratings the likes of which haven't been seen since 1998. Plans are currently underway to have Couric inserted into all of the network's programming until the Nielsen surge dissipates. [THR]
Variety gives a little background on new Viacommies Philippe Dauman and Thomas Dooley so that we can start thinking of them as individuals, not just the faceless Redstone-puppets who replaced Tom Freston. [Variety]
Rebecca DeMornay gets a chance at HBO-assisted career rehabilitation (let's let Kudrow's failed pay-cable comeback fade from memory for a moment) by signing up for David Milch's new show, John from Cincinnati. [THR]
The Mask co-stars Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz will join up in the romantic comedy A Little Game, at least until Focus Features shuts down the project as the costs of filming Carrey's signature 100-takes-of-improv scenes get out of hand, claiming some kind of symbolic stand against escalating star salaries. [Variety]

A reader lent a hand with our semi-regular feature in which we assist CBS in casting its trademark, sensational ripped-from-the-headlines Movies of the Week by suggesting quirky character actor Tim Blake Nelson for the part of the fugitive polygamist Warren Steed Jeffs, who stands accused of child rape for arranging marriages between men and underage girls and who may have as many of 40 wives of his own, in what we'll give the working title Bigger Love: The Capture Of Warren Steed Jeffs. A gifted actor and near-perfect physical match, Nelson will quickly secure the role by storming into CBS's casting offices and demonstrating how he's already able to make his carotid artery, which figured prominently in Jeffs' arrest, throb on command. And just to get a head start on filling out the cast so the network can rush into production while the story's still hot, we humbly offer up Dakota Fanning to play all of Jeffs' dozens of underage brides, a challenge worthy of her preternatural acting gifts.

Starz, the movie channel your local cable provider helpfully packages with HBO, Showtime, or the Black Inches On Demand Network, we forget which, plans to produce 12 movies a year for all platforms. [Variety]
THR generously explains Sarah Michelle Gellar's signing on to star in the low-budget-sounding, South Korean thriller adaptation Addicted as her "hoping to continue her winning streak in the genre business," rather than "taking the only kinds of roles she's offered anymore." [THR]
Anna Faris to go blonde, dumb in a Paramount comedy about a former centerfold who becomes a sorority house mother. Excuse us, a house mother "at UCLA's lamest sorority." Prepare yourselves for the obligatory, giddy makeover scene in which Faris tarts up some of her mousy charges. [Variety]
Celebrity Duets leads Fox to a Tuesday ratings win. How the hell did this premiere without us knowing about it? Our TiVo is clearly still angry at us for making it record an entire, ultimately unwatched season of Skating with Celebrities. [THR]
Hoping to not have to dream up a completely new title for their adaptation of the British phenomenon Footballers' Wives, ABC decides to transition the show's trashy soccer spouses to American football. [Variety]

When John Mark Karr was arrested for the self-confessed murder of JonBenet Ramsey, we, as we are wont to do when current events demand it, offered our help in casting his part in the inevitable CBS movie of the week. But as revealed in some audio of a conversation between Karr and the journalism professor to whom he falsely confessed obtained by The Smoking Gun, the once-suspected killer has some very specific ideas about who should get the gig:

Here's Variety on the Cruise/Redstone battle. [Variety]
· And just because we love you, a link to the THR coverage as well! We really never stop giving. [THR]
Fox unleashes primetime streaming hell upon the internets, making available new episodes of Prison Break and Vanished to just about any site capable of hosting video. [Variety]
Steve Buscemi and Dan Aykroyd join the cast of Universal's same-sex-marriage-for-health-benefits comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, with Buscemi as the city official hell-bent on proving Adam Sandler and Kevin James are only gay-for-copay, and Aykroyd as the fire department captain who'll crack wise about how the fake couple really want to fuck each other. [THR]
Morgan Creek Productions lines up $150 million in funding from a French bank, at least 20 percent of which is earmarked to cover production losses for days on which Lindsay Lohan is too dehydrated to show up on the set of their Georgia Rule. [Variety]

The Toronto Film Festival line up is announced, featuring offerings from up-and-comers Ridley Scott, Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Jude Law, Sandra Bullock, Sigourney Weaver, Brad Pitt, and Gwyneth Paltrow. [Variety]
· In a joint interview with ICM head Jeff Berg, Chris Silbermann, partner in recently acquired boutique agency BWCS, describes the transaction: "This is not an acquisition of need; this is a merger of desire." You may now stab yourself in the ear with a letter opener to halt the flood of images of pieces of Armani suits dropping to the floor, followed by the two merger-crazed agents rushing into each other's arms, finally ready to consummate their deal of passion. [THR]
· Paramount elevates MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies from "studio-based production companies" to "full-fledged divisions." Nothing gets us more excited than a nice, hot corporate restructuring story. [Variety]
The Weinstein Co. picks up the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut up and Sing, about the fallout from the country group's fateful decision to express an unfavorable public opinion about George W. Bush. [THR]
To appease the nation's anti-smoking lobby, Turner Broadcasting will edit out smoking in classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons
that air in the U.K., such as Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo, as well as completely erase from existence the character of Mr. Spacely, George Jetson's cigar-chomping boss. [Variety]

Scientologists seize control of the Creative Arts Emmys, awarding the prime-time animation statue to The Simpsons over South Park's Tom Cruise-baiting "Trapped in the Closet" episode. Not particularly caring about the other races but wanting to generally recognize excellence in pay TV programming, the shadowy sect decided to give 17 Emmys to HBO. [Variety]
Marlon Wayans will star in the high-concept DreamWorks comedy Pretty Ugly, in which he'll play a "handsome lifetsyle mogul who wakes up hideously ugly because of a curse," and who, for reasons we will not even attempt to understand, must then disguise himself as a Caucasian baby for the remainder of the movie. [THR]
Pirates of the Carribean wins its seventh straight weekend at the international box office, but was edged out by Snakes on a Plane in the UK. [Variety]
Onetime The OC golden boy Josh Schwartz will once again get a chance to prove his gift for climbing into the minds of teenage girls by writing the pilot for a potential The CW series based on the Gossip Girl books. [THR]
While other networks have begun showing episodes of their series on their own websites the day after they air, Fox is dumping the streaming duties on their local affiliates. [Variety]

We can almost see the barely concealed look of horror that flashed across the 24 casting director's face when deceptively Anglo-monikered Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle star Kal Penn signed in at his audition for a part as an up-and-coming CTU operative who would play a crucial role in a particularly daring, death-cheating Jack Bauer escape from enemy clutches. Upon discovering that the actor was perhaps not as alabaster-complected as they'd hoped ("Hold on, didn't I ask for Harold? What? Harold wasn't white either?"), much shuffling of script pages occurred as they scrambled to find the sides for the part of the Indian programmer to whom the recently deceased Edgar's job was outsourced, but could finally locate only ones for the "guy who is somehow involved with the Islamic guru running the neighborhood mosque and might be the key to a terrorist plot." The talented Penn, of course, shrugged off the switch and knocked it out of the park, saving the casting department the trouble of sitting through a wasted day of auditions with Latino actors they would deem not "ethnic" enough to be mixed up with terrorists.

On Wednesday, SNL mastermind and 30 Rock executive producer put a positive spin on the decision to demote star Rachel Dratch from a lead character to a "wide variety of roles," telling Variety, "The way it's been rewritten, it's a much funnier part." Of course, what he meant to say was, "The way it's been recast, it's a much blonder, more conventionally bimbonic part." Reports today's THR:

Warner Bros. and DreamWorks team up for a film version of the musical Sweeney Todd, in which Tim Burton will once again direct longtime muse Johnny Depp, this time with Depp playing the titular singing, murderous barber. [Variety]
The networks are planning a variety of Hurricane Katrina one-year anniversary specials, which should sufficiently break down the public's emotional resistance to the five-year anniversary specials about 9/11 that will follow soon after. [THR]
Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Your Own Work for Fun and Profit Edition: Wes Craven will produce a remake of his first film, Last House on the Left, for Rogue Pictures. [Variety]
· Local nightclub despot Sam Nazarian has finally collected on Lindsay Lohan's bar tab, directing the funds into the purchase of the comedy script College, upon which you should feel free to project your own keg party-related plot. [THR]
· Sid Ganis is re-elected to his post as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, a title he will hold until someone rises up from within AMPAS's ranks and beheads him. [Variety]

Every so often, significant news events demand that we assist CBS's harried casting department in filling out the significant roles in their inevitable Movie of the Week so that the project can be rushed into production while the story is still is fresh in the public's mind. The capture of confessed, "accidental" JonBenet Ramsey killer John Mark Karr seems like a comfortable fit for Happiness star and creepy go-to guy Dylan Baker; the physical resemblance is certainly there, and the actor's mere appearance on screen will make parents clutch their pageanteers closer, a kind of menacing, dramatic shorthand directors love. And thanks to the AP's fascination with Karr's appearance at the time of his arrest, we can also offer a head start to the wardrobe and make-up departments at this time:

· CBS announces that it will stream episodes of its shows (at least the ones it fully owns) on its broadband Innertube channel the day after they initially air on the "real" network. The online shows will still be ad-supported, so those looking to destabilize CBS's business model should still watch on DVR and blast through the commercials. [Variety]
Naturally, no plan to use a new platform for the delivery of creative content would be complete without an attempt to fuck the various Guilds in the ass. [Variety]
Fox Searchlight lands Wes Anderson's next project, Dajeerling Limited, which will employ Anderson regulars Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman, and, we hope, trusty safecracker/manservant Kumar Pallana. [THR]
Declining XM and Sirius stock prices have investors saying that the two satellite radio providers should merge, raising the tantalizing possibility that Howard Stern could one day browbeat new co-host Oprah Winfrey into riding the Sybian. [THR]
In what could be an epic brood-off, Focus Features signs up Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix to star in the adaptation of the novel Reservation Road, with Ruffalo playing a character who flees the scene after running over Phoenix's son. [Variety]

Fresh off the flop of My Super Ex Girlfriend, director Ivan Reitman convinces a financial backer to contribute $200 million to co-finance ten films over the next five years through his Montecito Picture Co. Producing partner Tom Pollock explains the economics of their hit-and-miss, mid-budgeted comedies: "The kinds of movies we make are in an exceptionally sweet spot in the studio system; we tend to make comedies at a price. When they work, like with Old School and Road Trip, they make a lot of money. When they don't, like Eurotrip, they don't lose much. From a Wall Street standpoint, that's a good risk." Here's to throwing shitty comedies against the wall and seeing what sticks! [Variety]
· Morgan Creek determines that a few more dollars might fall out of his pockets if they hold Ace Ventura's corpse by the ankles and give it a vigorous shake, then hires some writers to whip up a third installment centering around the pet detective's son. Given Jim Carrey's recent struggles getting a project off the ground, don't rule out the actor making a cameo as Ace and then finishing out the rest of the movie playing his own kid. [THR]
As the media wonders why Viacom didn't buy MySpace when it had the chance, rumors are circulating that Sumner Redstone ordered Tom Freston to go to San Francisco to make a deal, but Freston never went. Viacom calls the story "patently untrue," while also denying reports that CBS Corp. bully/rival Les Moonves sat on Freston's chest until Rupert Murdoch could complete his purchase of the social networking site. [Variety]
Fox wins Monday's 18-49 demographic with its two-hour finale of Hell's Kitchen. Your takeaway from this: The networks' summer reality series filler has mostly been used up, and it's nearly safe to start watching TV again. [THR]
The following is the title of an actual bass-fishing project now in development at Fox Atomic and not a joke about the next Will Ferrell movie: Fishing on the Edge: The Mike Iaconelli Story [Variety]

Disney employees who recently lost their jobs in the recent Cast Member Massacre will be overjoyed to learn that the company made "massive gains in its fiscal third quarter," and that's even before their saved salaries and the Pirates 2 box office dollars hit the books. OK, here's a cheerier thought: The noble sacrifice of their paychecks will probably help Bob Iger boost his annual bonus. Yay! [Variety]
Great News For The Recently Shitcanned Day continues, as Paramount gets "back in the black" from the DreamWorks acquisition, corporate parent Viacom reports a large gain in profits, and super-positive CEO Tom Freston declares that the 'Mount is "re-emerging as a top-tier studio." Thanks, everybody they fired to make this possible! [Variety]
There's really nothing else to talk about in Hollywood but money, so we note that Sony beat Disney to $1 billion at the domestic box office. Remember last year when everyone thought Sony's Amy Pascal was getting fired for her bombtastic summer of Stealth and XXX? Good times. [THR]
Universal and Fox entrust 26-year-old Neill Blomkamp, who previously has only directed commercials, with directing their precious Halo project. The studios' first choice for the blockbuster hopeful, the guy who came up with the edgy, buzzed-about "Apply directly to the forehead" spots, was unavailable. [Variety]
John C. Reilly is officially inducted into comedy's New Gay Mafia by landing a second starring project in a week following Talladega Nights, this time hooking up with Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan for Walk Hard, a spoof of musical biopics like Ray and Walk the Line. [Variety]

Pixar philosopher-kings John Lasseter and Ed Catmull might find themselves investigated by the SEC for receiving possibly illegal backdated stock options, potentially tarnishing their reputations as Disney's new, infallible Messiahs. [Variety]
· Rupert Murdoch pops a fistful of Viagra, publicly chubs up upon News Corp's announcement that the company boosted earnings 19 percent in the fiscal fourth quarter. [THR]
A Maryland court rules that Brent Redstone's lawsuit against dad Sumner's National Amusements company can go forward, but also decrees he must wait until the completion of the trial to snuff out the old man with a throw pillow while he naps during a Golden Girls rerun. [Variety]
Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson will recapture their How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days chemistry in the adventure comedy Fool's Gold, which is described as "just go rent Romancing the Stone and save yourself a trip to the theater." [THR]
· NBC greenlights reality competition You're the One that We Want, in which viewers choose which singing and dancing contestants will star in a revival of Grease. Travolta's going to look pretty ridiculous trying to squeeze into the old leather jacket during his audition, and even more so when Hugh Jackman beats him out for the part. [Variety]

Serially troubled, lesser Baldwin brother Daniel gets a recurring guest role on The Sopranos, playing the star of the horrible horror film that Christopher has been working on. Baldwin will join Kevin "Johnny Drama" Dillon in HBO's stable of actors cast because their relationships to far more successful kin provide an instant, vaguely depressing subtext to every line they deliver. [THR]
Endeavor is happy to pick up ICM's recently dumped Nancy Josephson on the rebound, but she'll probably just leave her new partner gig the second CAA comes calling. [Variety]
Starbucks decides that frappuccinos go down better while reading shitty books, will offer Mitch Albom's For One More Day for purchase in their stores. In a related promotional move, the chain plans to start handing out unsold Akeelah and the Bee DVDs for use as coasters. [Variety]
The Florida Film Commission's new slogan of "Florida: Not As Hurricane-Plagued As You've Been Led To Believe" has failed to reverse the production slowdown the state is experiencing. [THR]
Google will provide New Corp's interactive properties with search and advertising services through 2010, helping Rupert Murdoch finally overcome his inability to track down and destroy the dozens of fake MySpace profiles bearing his likeness. [Variety]

· No Monday morning would be complete without a blurb about how much money Pirates 2 is making overseas. The megablockbuster sequel added $57 million to what we are contractually obligated refer to as either its "pirate's booty" or "treasure chest," lifting its total worldwide gross to a rival-sterilizing $772 million. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Huge In France Edition: Jerry Lewis will do some voices in a Weinstein Company remake of The Nutty Professor as an animated film, giving new life to a story that hasn't been needlessly recycled in nearly six years. [THR]
Hollywood royalty endures the inconvenience of no direct commercial flights from Los Angeles to Traverse City, MI, to participate in the Michael Moore-hosted film festival there. Notable: Borat's unofficial premiere at the festival, held a month before it's "official" bow in Toronto in September, and Moore's failure to draw any protests to this year's event. [Variety]
The comedy heroes responsible for Wet Hot American Summer add Winona Ryder, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, Liev Schreiber, Rob Corddry, Ron Silver and Oliver Platt to the cast of The Ten, which already includes Jessica Alba, Adam Brody, Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. [THR]
The non-union actors who walked off the job at the NY American Girl Place store in NY have returned to work, with no guarantees that their stuffed, creepy, racially diverse baby-doll masters will ever recognize their attempts to join Actors' Equity. [Variety]

CBS Corp's Les Moonves' sinister plan to slowly destroy corporate rival/brother Tom Freston of Viacom proceeds apace with the announcement that CBS's film unit will produce 4 to 6 mid-budgeted movies a year, which Moonves will then use to stock Showtime and reduce the network's dependence on Freston's Paramount product. That clear? No? Just imagine Moonves kicking Freston in the balls and you've got the gist. [Variety]
Christian Bale is "close to a deal" to star opposite Russell Crowe in James Mangold's western remake 3:10 to Yuma, which has survived a disastrous history of prolonged languishing in turnaround and rumored Tom Cruise involvement long enough to finally find some financing. [THR]
· Former Project Greenlight superstar and Weinstein survivor Jon Gordon lasts just a year as president of production at Universal, but publicly bears no ill will (yet) over his ankling/shitcanning: "Obviously, this is sudden. There are talks under way and things are not resolved now. I have no animosity towards these guys. I think there is a really good team in place." Gordon plans on spending the weekend designing a full-page Variety ad thanking the studio for the opportunity to be let go. [Variety]
World Trade Center premiered in New York last night, representing a "major test" for Paramount both because it's the first true project produced by the Brad Grey regime and the fact that it contains an obvious metaphor for his leadership of the studio. Is it too soon to joke about Grey piloting planes full of laid-off employees into the Paramount watertower? [Variety]
The Fox pilot The Adventures of Big Handsome Guy and His Little Friend finds it way onto the YouTube circuit, prompting 20th Century Fox Television to announce its intention to hunt down and kill the source of the leak. [THR]

Macauley Culkin will star with Eliza Dushku in the dark comedy Sex and
Breakfast, which will attempt to coax edgy laughter from the disconnect of watching the Home Alone kid engage in group sex. [Variety]
Be prepared to excuse yourselves for some alone time after getting all worked up by these two sexy trade paper stories about multimedia conglomerate profit reports. [THR, THR ]
Seeking new and exciting ways of delivering episodes of The Hills to a cherished demographic, MTV is buying Y2M, the nation's largest network of online college newspapers. [Variety]
Sony and MGM move ahead with their Pink Panther sequel by hiring a writing team of "newcomers" whose work will eventually be undone by scores of uncredited rewrites. [THR]
Conservative CBS eschews the willy-nilly fall TV season premiere strategy of its crazy whippsnapper competitors, and will instead roll out new episodes of its various series in a single week. [Variety]

· Bravely ignoring the fact that no one has cared about the Pussycat Dolls since "Don't Cha" was licensed out for a series of feminine hygiene ads late last year inquiring if women harbored secret, envious wishes that their "douche was fresh like me," The CW will enable The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll, which is exactly what you think it is: a reality show ripping off both Idol and Top Model. [Variety]
· Universal moves the comedy Accepted to August 18th, hoping that confused males between the ages of 18-30 will mistakenly wander into theaters showing the movie while looking for Snakes on a Plane. [THR]
· CNN finds that Israel's invasion of Lebanon is great for ratings. If only there were a joke to be made about Mel Gibson's thoughts on war and Jews... [Variety]
· Sensing an opportunity to bring pictures and full-motion video of famous people to television for the first time, Warner Bros. Telepictures mulls rushing a TV version of TMZ.com into syndication. [B&C]
· New Bond girl Eva Green gets a gig playing "the queen of witches" in The Golden Compass. No word on whether this witch-queen has a penchant for gratuitous nudity, so our excitement is muted until more facts are gathered. [Variety]