· The following is not a joke: CBS is developing a family sitcom for Rev. Al Sharpton. Better: It's called Al in the Family, but will likely not incorporate the wacky hijinks of the infamous Tawana Brawley case. [Variety]
· The November sweeps results are in, and CBS and ABC end the ratings-whoring period in a deeply unsatisfying tie in the 18-49 demographic. Unsurprisingly, ultracompetive CBS is touting its razor-thin 16,000 viewer edge in the demo, as well as a victory in total viewers. NBC, it should be noted, did not finish last, and Fox holds its breath, absorbing its loss knowing that soon it will release its American Idol Kracken and rise from the depths of Nielsen failure. [THR]
· Director Peter Berg has compromising pictures of Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, "persuades" him to join the cast of his The Kingdom for Universal. [Variety]
· As noted yesterday, NBC blows up its Thursday night for January, moving Earl and The Office from Tuesday to new Must See spots. To make room on the schedule, they're knocking Joey on the head with a rolling pin, leaving him somewhere in the desert, and dealing with the problem only if he somehow finds his way home. [THR]
· Major cable companies announce rate hikes for 2006. Fuck you, major cable companies, we already pay too much as it is for 25 channels of Law & Order reruns. [THR]

· As previously discussed, now that American Idol is definitely staying on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the other networks scrub clean their soiled underthings and scramble to rearrange their schedules. [Variety]
· Amy Brenneman will join Al Pacino in the thriller 88 Minutes, in which Pacino learns that he's got only 88 minutes to sleepwalk through another performance before his character is killed. [THR]
· 20th Century Fox TV signs Nicole Richie to a talent holding deal, with the studio holding onto Richie until they can identify a talent that doesn't involve distressing weight-loss or hating Paris Hilton, then jam her into an appropriate, ill-fated project. [Variety]
· CBS rides Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to a Wednesday night win in total viewers, but ABC ekes out a 18-49 demo victory thanks to Lost. [THR]
· Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman turn their political attention to the very serious problem of 15 year-olds being able to buy violent videogames without an annoyed parent present. [Variety]

· Jeremy Piven is in final talks to star in an untitled New Line "man vs. nature" comedy. Get ready for it: "Piven will play a smug Portland, Ore., real estate developer who accepts a challenge from his real estate mogul boss to develop a pristine forest in the hopes of being promoted to partner. He gets more than he bargained for when the area's animal residents start taking their revenge on him and wreak havoc on his every attempt to develop the land." Piven finally gets the lead, and he has to do an angry-raccoons-attacking-uptight-suit" flick? He should fire his agent. Again. [THR]
· SATC creator Darren Star leaves behind the world of shoe-shopping and funky spunk to develop an hour-long BBC soap about Formula One racing, "an enormous sport overseas that barely exists here." Next up: Star's sassy look at the world of cricket players' wives. [Variety]
· Annals of stunt casting: Tom Selleck will guest star on Boston Legal as Candace Bergen's ex-husband. [THR]
· Shitergy alert: USA and Bravo will pay sister company NBC Universal $1.4 million an episode for cable rights to House reruns, a hefty sum that should nip in the bud any notions that the cable nets got some sort of sweetheart deal from their corporate sibling. [Variety]
· In fairness, NBC doesn't get trounced in the ratings every single night. Last night's Biggest Loser finale did big numbers, giving them their highest (non-Olympic) rating in that timeslot in four long years, prompting president Kevin Reilly to immediately demand that his Loser finalist regain their weight for a live, two-hour special "pound-off" during February sweeps. [THR]

Los Angeles, it has been said, is a town built on dreams. And for three lucky body parts models, those dreams are about to come true:

· With an eye towards cleaning up at next year's holiday box office, Fox signs Ben Stiller for A Night at the Museum, in which Stiller will star as a security guard who "unwittingly unleashes a curse that brings to life the bugs and animals on display." Excuse us. Stiller will star as a twitchy, neurotic, and impotent-rage-prone security guard who "unwittingly unleashes a curse that brings to life the bugs and animals on display." [Variety]
· Despite CBS's killer hurricane and NBC's live debate on The West Wing/two-hour L&O:SVU counterprogramming Hail Marys, America still preferred to watch the creepy, gay-seeming pharmacist contemplate date-raping Marcia Cross on Desperate Housewives. [THR]
· Michael Douglas mercifully chooses a role which will probably not require any further restorative plastic surgery, signing up to play "an eccentric and manic-depressive father who becomes obsessed with his belief that there's buried treasure in the San Fernando Valley" in the Alexander Payne-produced King of California. [Variety]
· Now that an Everybody Loves Raymond spinoff looks like a longshot, Brad Garrett realizes that he might need someone to find him a job, hires William Morris to hunt down the appropriate sitcom second-banana roles and CBS MOWs. [THR]
· It's William Morris Signing Day! Catherine Zeta-Jones returns to the welcoming arms of longtime WMA agent George Freeman, whom she jilted for CAA two years ago. [Variety]

Late Tuesday, we short-ended a link to a Craigslist Seattle ad (since removed) seeking a fresh set of bandmates for Courtney Love, who's apparently looking to make a big musical comeback after rehab. It looks like the cattle call's been extended to L.A.

With all due respect to Rosa Parks' legacy, CBS won't send the checks if we don't help them cast their inevitable M.O.W. If Dakota Fanning's hot enough to force sex changes for characters she's interested in playing, surely her agents can pressure Les Moonves into making some slight alterations to the civil rights legend's life story to better suit their client's bankable gifts.

· "Major" directors Cameron Crowe and Tony Scott are plunged into dark waters of existential anguish after being trounced by a shitty horror remake this weekend. [Variety]
· According to a THR report, NBC won't renew its NASCAR deal past 2006, preferring that all of the network's fiery wrecks occur on its primetime schedule. [THR]
· The proposed sale of DreamWorks grows still more complicated; despite press reports, Var says that NBC Universal has not increased its offer to buy Steven Spielberg's failed dreams, and new bidder Paramount has expressed its interest in being used as a ploy to drive up the price of the inevitable sale to NBC Uni. [Variety]
· Even if the other networks ran live coverage of Jesus Christ's return on Sunday night, ABC's Desperate Housewives would still trounce them in the Nielsens. [THR]
· Headline of the day: "Par sends Dunst to Iraq." Don't get your hopes up, she's been cast as a relief worker killed by suicide bomber, not punished by Paramount for Elizabethtown's weak opening. [Variety]

Sony announced that it will end its torturous James Bond Edition of "Just the Tip In" tomorrow and finally thrust the name of the new tuxedo model deep inside the superspy's anxious fans. We've heard that the recent British tabloid chatter is correct: Kate Moss is a skinny-minny coke-whore. We kid! Daniel Craig will be named as the latest Bond, news that we find at least fifty percent less satisfying than the possibility that he porked Sienna Miller. We offer our premature congratulations to Craig, who outlasted a potential Bond field of Clive Owen, Jude Law, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Hugh Grant, Dr. Who, a plate of delicious fish n' chips, a joke about bad teeth, and, of course, Ewan McGregor.

Not content to attempt the trashy fission of traditional nuclear families (both black and white), producers of The Simple Life are extending their offer of refreshingly progressive exploitation to same-sex partners looking for a quick payday and the opportunity to watch their love die in prime-time. A Defamer operative forwards us this (slightly edited) casting call e-mail:

Little did we know, yesterday's averted JetBlue tragedy was very nearly an averted Hollywood tragedy as well:

· The new-look, post-Weinstein Miramax looks to roar back to relevancy and make a splash at the Toronto film festival by acquiring...a documentary about girls' basketball. [Variety]
· ESPN will branch out from Bristol with offices in a new Los Angeles entertainment center (think ESPN Zone on steroids—a lot of steroids) being built across from Staples Center. The new facility should help the network's ESPN Hollywood coverage become at least 200 percent more pointless and annoying. [THR]
· House executive producers Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs move from NBC Universal to Fox; Fox's Peter Liguori calls the producers "monster talents" with whom he'd "like to make out with, all day, every day." [Variety]
· On a slow news day, sometimes it's fun to dive down into the deepest recesses of the casting notices and see what kind of bizarre bioluminescent news lives there: Devon Sawa and Matthew Lawrence sign on to star in the sci-fi/horror flick Hunter's Moon. [THR]
· Simon Baker joins Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in Fox 2000's The Devil Wears Prada. We feel somewhat ashamed that we have no idea who Simon Baker is, even after reviewing his IMDb profile. [Variety]

· In addition to the seemingly endless (but helpful) parade of telethons and corporate matching gift programs for hurricane relief, Hollywood is getting "creative" in its charitable efforts to ease people's pain, such as building and/or refurbishing a variety of structures to house the displaced. The entertainment industry: not always as evil as it's cracked up to be. [Variety]
· Emma Roberts, daughter-of-Eric-and-niece-of-Julia, kicks off in earnest a life of explaining that her acting career has nothing to do with her bloodlines by being cast as the big-screen Nancy Drew. Potentially making matters worse is that Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills will be set in the "fast-living, self-indulgent world of Hollywood." [THR]
· HBO picks up Rome for a second 12 episode season, but in true HBO fashion, the series won't air again until 2007. That's a long time until we get to see Polly Walker getting freaky two or three times an episode. But we'll wait. [Variety]
· Fox Searchlight picks up Bart "Mr. Julianne Moore" Freundlich's Trust the Man for $6 to $7 million at Toronto, seemingly without being threatened with "handshake court" by Paramount Classics. [THR]
· Universal and Mountain Dew Films will partner on the snowboarding documentary First Descent. Someone please burn down Hollywood before Paramount hooks up with Fanta. [Variety]

· Creepy Stunt-Casting Alert! Former Demi Moore spouse Bruce Willis will appear on an episode of That 70s Show with current Moore boyfriend/possible impregnator Ashton Kutcher. Self-referential jokes about sharing the same woman will certainly follow (and, we suspect, a surprise Moore cameo). Creepiness-mitigating silver lining: Willis is donating his fee to the Red Cross. [Variety]
· Paramount enables Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese to author a fourth chapter in their cinematic love affair, optioning the rights to the Teddy Roosevelt bio The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Sounds like an Oscar-baiting vehicle in which DiCaprio gets to physically transform himself from an asthmatic, 25 year-old wimp to a "burly," somewhat less wimpy-seeming Rough Rider. We'll do our best not to laugh at Leo in Teddy's signature moustache. [Variety]
· Monster's Ball director Mark Forster will direct the adaptation of the mega-best-selling The Kite Runner for DreamWorks. Or for Universal, or for whatever big studio eventually buys up what's left of Steven Spielberg's dreams. [THR]
· Fox wins Sunday night with football, The Simpsons, and The Family Guy. [THR]
· Ang Lee's gay cowboy yarn, Brokeback Mountain, wins the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion. But American audiences have to wait until December 9th to witness Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal's hot cowpoking action. [Variety]

In an online-only interview for Newsweek.com, Jessica Alba finally debunks the rumor that she was approached about becoming Tom Cruise's zombie bride ("No. I have a boyfriend. Why would I go out on a date with another man? I’ve been in a relationship for a year." Du-uh!), a role later played with aplomb by Katie Holmes. There, that's settled. But far more interesting to us is Alba's continuing campaign to make sure the world knows that she's earned every part with acting talent, dammit, and wasn't merely cast because of her logic-defying hotness:

· Ben Affleck is in "talks" to write and produce the TV drama Resistance for Touchstone, apparently hedging his bets in case this acting stuff doesn't pan out. [Variety]
· Shockingly, Fox's probe into American Idol judge Paula Abdul's alleged conflict-causing coaching/boinking of former contestant Corey Clark turns up no wrongdoing, but the network plans to crack down on future judge-pitchy singer fraternization by affixing alarms to the genitals of all AI staff. [THR]
· The Island attempts to become something of a smaller disaster through the foreign box office, beating out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this weekend. [Variety]
· As the clock approaches midnight on December 31st and Ryan Seacrest hugs New Year's Rockin' Eve co-host Dick Clark a little too tightly, microphones will probably not pick up Seacrest's whispered New Year's wishes to his mentor, "I thought I got rid of you for good last year, but this time I've burned that picture in your attic, old man. You'll be dead before the ball's finished dropping." [THR]
· V does execu shuffle, longtime staffer becomes ed, Bart remains chief. Eh, can we really bring ourselves to care? [Variety]
· Despite being fired off the Brooke Shields MOW, Johnny Drama's quote proves too costly for producers, who opt for Karl Urban to play the lead in Viking remake Pathfinder. [THR]

Warning! The "open casting call" that begins in the VIP area and ends up near a dumpster in the alley behind your favorite Hollywood hotspot may be a scam. (Is nothing in this town real anymore?) From the casting section of the Bunim-Murray website:

One day in the very near future, Craigslist will completely destabilize the Hollywood casting system. Who needs mass e-mailed casting calls, or ads in Backstage West, or the overhead involved in having a "person" with a "telephone" to confirm that a certain actress's headshot came through on the fax machine? We once again embrace the revolution:

When we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it didn't register that the movie's Golden Ticket-winning kids were a tad...monochromatic. While we can just shrug this off with a simple, "Isn't everybody white like us?" Newsweek, asks director Tim Burton why his child actors are pastier than a Kentucky high school basketball team from 1947:

Of course, this study was conducted before new and exciting opportunities in the pirate-acting field were announced. Between the two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, this underrepresentation should all but disappear.