· SAG celebrates the actorly arts by recognizing the casts of The Aviator, Sideways, Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, and Ray with their award nominations. [THR]
· Shades of Wooderson? Matthew McConaughey signs on for the Scott Rudin project Failure to Launch, as a thirtysomething guy whose parents fix him up to get him out of their house. [THR]
· What the hell, cast everyone! Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger, Carla Gugino, Nick Cannon, Forest Whitaker, Jay Mohr, Kelsey Grammer, and Ray Liotta sign on (or will soon) for the Mark Rydell-directed indie drama Jump Shot. [Variety, sub req'd.]
· NBC wins Monday night with Medium, despite competition from the premiere of The Bachelorette and a second night of 24 doubleheaders. [THR]
· Bill Condon, now the musical go-to-guy after adapting Chicago, will follow up Kinsey by directing a movie version of the Broadway musical Dreamgirls for DreamWorks. [Variety]

· The comic book fanboy rumors are true: Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey will play Lois Lane and Lex
Luthor in Bryan Singer's new Superman flick. That's Bosworth-Lane and Spacey-Luthor, unless Singer's really trying to shake thing up. [THR]
· Chastened by Michael Eisner's reign of terror at Disney, the company decides to keep the jobs of chairman and CEO separate. What this means to laymen: The CEO gets first choice of which character costume he gets to wear at board meetings. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· British thesp David Morrissey hops aboard Basic Instinct 2 as the psychiatrist who tries to figure out Sharon Stone's homicidal, beaver-flashing novelist. Wow, one sentence in and we've already stopped caring. [THR]
· Modest ratings gains have NBC desperately clinging to the idea that 2005 won't be as big a disaster as last year. Keep hope alive, Jeff Zucker! [THR]
· ExploitationWatch: CBS snatches up the rights to Amber Frey's Witness to develop as telepic. [Variety]

This is a helpful note to anyone thinking of relocating to L.A.: You'd better hit the gym, because every gig in town requires that you send a nude picture to your potential employer. Especially the server gigs:

· As we all know by now, Brad Grey is confirmed as head of Paramount, etc etc. [THR, Variety, sub. req'd.]
· John Travolta will play a homicide detective in the feature Lonely Hearts. We hope he's the kind of cop who breaks all the rules, we can't get enough of those! James Gandolfini will sully himself alongside the bloated, scenery-chewing Scientologist. [Variety]
· HBO, bored of their procession of single-camera comedy hits, gives a pick up to its first multi-camera sitcom, a family show written by and starring Louis C.K. Oh, the hubris that makes HBO think they can make the laugh track bearable... [THR]
· MTV picks up 3 more seasons of The Real World, ensuring that Los Angeles will have a nearly inexhaustible supply of bartenders and servers that patrons kind of recognize from the TV. [Variety]
· OutKast's Andre 3000 will star as Mark Wahlberg's brother in Paramount's dead-mother-avenging feature previously known as Four Brothers. If you had any questions as to why Paramount had to clean house, please re-read the first sentence. [THR]
· Once-proud, one-man lawyer drama factory David E. Kelley slowly descends the network ladder, exec producing the pilot Halley's Comet for the WB. [THR]
· Breaking: Directors Guild nominates Clint Eastwood, Marc Forster, Taylor Hackford, Alexander Payne, and Martin Scorsese for its awards. [Variety]

The folks at NBC's midseason replacement I-see-dead-people drama Medium are looking for an extra with a nice "back end." We love it when casting directors get all coy! And, oh yes, if you've got any pictures of your "front end," they've got a "special address" for that too. They don't want to be accused of being "ass people."

Say what you will about director Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera (we have a feeling these comments mostly fall in the "flop" or "sucks" veins), but it could've been far, far worse. An operative tips us to a flight of casting fancy that might've killed off the musical movie-adaptation genre forever:

·"No power player has ever given up as much autonomy and wealth to become the No. 3 man in an entertainment company." So sayeth Peter Bart about Brad Grey's expected move to Paramount, but he's obviously overlooking the valuable opportunity to be Les Moonves' demonic valet (Tom Freston will be long slain) at Viacom when the Rapture comes. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda will open the Santa Barbara Film Festival. This isn't as scary as it sounds—Allen's only creatively dead, not actually dead. [THR]
· Samaire Armstrong, on-screen assistant to Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold on Entourage (and late of The O.C.), is cast as Lindsay Lohan's BFF in her untitled "Lucky" project. Next up for Armstrong: peer-pressure surgery, a drinking problem, and a punitive fling with Fez. [THR]
· Carsey-Werner and Fox will attempt to squeeze every last drop of blood from the dessicated corpse of That 70's Show, formulating plans to keep the sitcom going after Topher Grace bails at the end of this season and Ashton Kutcher makes only token appearances. [Variety]
· Every time a publicist is promoted, an angel gets a scorching case of herpes: Rebecca Marks moved up to executive VP of NBC Universal west coast publicity division. The bad news is she still reports directly to fading NBC-U golden boy Jeff Zucker. [Variety]

Wedged between the "Non-Union Docu-Drama" and "Personal Assistant, Adult entertainment business" Craigslist solicitations—which are certainly both delicious in their own ways— is this little casting gem:

· Lindsay Lohan dumps Endeavor for CAA, who apparently provided her with a much more comprehensive strategy for the further marketing of her assets. Which is no mean feat, considering that Endeavor snagged her $3.5 million per breast from 20th Century Fox. [THR]
· HBO is on the verge of becoming the first network in history to top a billion dollars in profit. And all of this success without Good Morning Miami, Complete Savages, or Center of the Universe. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· For all of those kids who missed out on the whole Matrix thing: An upcoming Constantine videogame will allow players to feel the virtual "Whoa" of becoming Keanu Reeves. [THR]
· Please forgive us, but we must: Uma, Ulla. Ulla,Uma. Etc etc. (Oh, we feel so very unclean.) Uma Thurman may take over for Nicole Kidman in the film version of The Producers. [Variety]
· ESPN is developing a made-for-TV movie about legendary boxer Jack Johnson. Folly! How will they ever top Tom Sizemore's epic turn in Hu$tle? [THR]

A little birdie tipped us off that the casting people for the upcoming Judd Apatow/Steve Carell project 40 Year-Old Virgin (no explanation necessary) are trolling local porn production companies for talent. They weren't looking for porn stars to really stretch themselves in the craft; the part in question is a hooker that's supposed to devirginize Carell's character. A day after sending out some script pages, though, the porn companies were told the hooker part had been rewritten as a tranny (thereby ratcheting up the hilarity levels by at least 33 percent). We don't want to tell these professionals how to do their jobs, but why don't they just cut out the middleman by taking a slow drive down Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood after sundown? They'd have nearly limitless casting options, most of whom probably already have SAG cards.

· Viacom co-pres Les Moonves creates the CBS Marketing Group to oversee all marketing activities for CBS and UPN and "maximize [their] promotional power." So why did Moonves order this new "Marketing Group" fifty tanks and enough assault rifles to march into Nevada? Start hording the bottle water and canned food. The invasion is nigh. [THR]
· Showtime, further cementing their role as HBO's retarded cousin, gives a 10 episode order to the Mary Louise Parker suburban-mom-turned-pot-dealer series—get ready for it, because here it comes—Weeds. Possible promotional tagline: "The gateway drug to hilarity!" [THR]
· Shocker: The Simpsons dominates WGA nominations in the animation category. West Wing and Sex and the City also receive props. [Variety, sub, req'd.]
· Universal grabs Harrison Ford to star in the first feature on the current war in Iraq, based on the upcoming book No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah. If they hold off production for some kind of resolution in Iraq, they might have to rewrite Ford's part as an Alzheimer's-afflicted WWII vet who wants to "grab his helmet and get back in the shit." [Variety]
· The Broadcast Film Critics Association continues to set up critics everywhere for an eventual Oscar letdown by nominating Sideways for 8 awards. Why do these people insist on celebrating this excellent film?! Why?! [THR]

· Columbia hires Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck to write the Will Ferrell beach volleyball comedy, Bronze God. Gregory understands what he's supposed to deliver: "Will's about the funniest guy out there, and he's even funnier shirtless, in a Speedo and with a savage tan." Then again, the phrase "Will Ferrell beach volleyball comedy" probably sold this one all by itself. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· LOTR's Sean Bean will play the bad guy in Michael Bay's The Island, a movie that "centers on a harvested being who becomes self-aware and tries to escape" from a hack director who still thinks he's shooting music videos. [THR]
· Rose McGowan is in negotiations to play Ann-Margaret in the CBS Elvis biopic, undoubtedly because Lindsay Lohan is otherwise engaged dancing on bars and screwing Colin Farrell. [THR]
· CBS picks up Survivor through 2006, but all future runners-up must now spend a ten-year indentured servitude servicing Les Moonves' every whim. High stakes indeed. [Variety]
· Chris Weitz will no longer direct New Line's movie adaptation of the His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass fantasy novel. Weitz denies "creative differences," but probably because he's staying on as a writer. [THR]

· The latest on Miramax vs. Disney: In an SEC filing, Disney ominously states that production of Miramax projects may be "abandoned or otherwise impaired" after their deal with the Weinsteins expires. This is the closest Michael Eisner can get to threatening to kill Harvey Weinstein's children. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Hilary Swank gets the "femme fatale" role in the Brian DePalma adaptation of the James Ellroy novel The Black Dahlia. DePalma will now have to try and find a way to butch her up a little and put her right back in Oscar contention. [Variety]
· No matter how hard we close our eyes and wish for Brett Ratner to disappear, he stubbornly continues to show up in the trades. Robin Tunney signs up for Ratner's Fox drama Prison Break.[THR]
· NY Film Critics Circle jumps on the Sideways bandwagon. When will these critics stop blindly rewarding excellence, just like the Academy voters did years ago? [THR]
· NBC Universal Television pretends to humor Will & Grace star Eric McCormack's producing aspirations, sets up a shingle for him with offices across from the CBS Radford lot. How long will it take McCormack to figure out NBC provided him with cardboard prop computers from Ikea and Fisher Price telephones? [Variety]

· Let the end-of-year listmania begin: AFI releases its top 10 movies/television programs of 2004. [THR]
· The lovable drunks of Sideways take the LA Critics Assn. [THR], San Francisco Critics Circle [Variety, sub. req'd.], and NY Online Critics [THR] top honors. They're all just setting themselves up for disappointment when Miramax buys a win for The Aviator at the Oscars.
· The Desperate Housewives juggernaut outdoes all TV series in Golden Globe nominations, even beating The Sopranos by a count of five to four. Unfortunately, adulterous, teen-banging wife Eva Longoria is shut out. [Variety]
· Fox is so desperate to grab the Steve Levitan-Pamela Anderson pilot that it gives the still-unwritten project a six- episode, on-air commitment. Or, in terms we can better understand, three episodes per implant. [Variety]
· Kathy Bates is in negotiations to star in the Lifetime movie Ambulance Girl, about a middle-aged housewife who drives a fire truck. Kidding! She drives an ambulance. Naked. OK, not really. One nude scene per decade for Bates really is more than enough. [THR]

· Switching to a strategy in which they will only try to court viewers who live within the Los Angeles city limits, Showtime fast-tracks the production of Two Blind Mikes, the story of Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz's love affair gone sour. Do the Showtime folks know something we don't about how The Hollywood Trial of the Century is going to turn out? [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Warner Bros. becomes the first studio to make over $2 billion internationally in one year. Apparently, Troy and Last Samurai play much better with overdubbing or subtitles. [THR]
· Nicole Kidman ditches the new The Producers movie, claiming she's way too busy to learn the songs and dance routines. [Variety]
· Snoop Dogg will star in and produce a Coach Snoop, a film about his experiences coaching his son's football team. Said Snoop, "But most importantly during the football season, if you aren't wearing a helmet, get the fuck away from me. Football first; everything else second." Well, everything else but weed. [THR]
· HBO claims their in-show product placements are all driven by story and add extra realism, instead of adding huge amounts of cash to the network. Right. Nothing's more real than stealth cash from advertisers. [THR]

· The O.C.'s Mischa Barton is in negotiations to star in Dino de Laurentiis period drama The Decameron, based on the 14th century literary classic that no one within a 300-mile radius of Los Angeles has ever heard of. [THR]
· Adam Sandler's proves his Happy Madison Productions exists solely to keep his underemployed friends in mortgage payments, producing Bench Warmers for Rob Schneider and David Spade. Make up your own idea for a logline, you'll probably get it in fewer than three tries. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· In a move we're sure has NOTHING to do with Pixar's Cars move, DreamWorks pushes Shrek 3 to 2007. Why not just hold it until the Apocalypse, Katzenberg? It's a great time for opening family fare. [THR]
· Wayne Brady and Frasier scribe Saldin Patterson set up a legal comedy at NBC. Suicide, cutting, and vomiting to follow this item. Not in that order. [THR]
· DreamWorks renews its deal with Ben Stiller's Red Hour production company, banking that it will get more DodgeBall than Duplex. [Variety]

· Adorably creepy child-actor-of-the-moment Dakota Fanning will star in a Paramount/Nickelodeon Pictures adaptation of Charlotte's Web. We once again applaud her handlers' savvy in keeping her busy before she boards the train to Osmentville. [THR]
· Tom Hanks's Playtone Productions sets up reality show/mockumentary We're With The Band at Comedy Central, a show so confoundingly genre-busting that it seems designed solely to circumvent the rules of every professional guild in town. Also, it stars Alanis Morrissette, probably just to piss off the INS. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Vol. XXI: 20th Century Fox Television forces us to remember Maury Povich's salad days by resurrecting "seminal" news magazine show A Current Affair. [THR]
· Stunt casting alert! Zach Braff talks pal Colin Farrell into doing a turn on Scrubs, where he'll play against type as an "unruly Irishman" who "shows up drunk to the set every day" and "shows his penis to everyone in a ten-foot radius" before "vomiting on a gurney." [Variety]
· News That Ten People Care About: The WGA West will re-edit a controversial roundtable discussion about the Guild's problems with an eye on publishing it in Written By, their in-house magazine. Also, Dan Petrie, Jr. is fighting a ticket he got for double-parking on Fairfax. [THR]

· Scott Rudin takes a break from his extremely busy schedule of hiring, torturing, and firing assistants to produce an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men for Paramount. He may even have to postpone at least three of his weekly lashing sessions until the project's casting phase. [THR]
· Studios shuffle end-of-year release dates, killing time during the holiday season under the guise of "awards positioning" and "Christmas openings." [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Julianne Moore is in negotiations to star opposite Nicolas Cage, currently the Biggest Star in the World, in yet another Phillip K. Dick adaptation, Next. [Variety]
· "Breaking news": Kanye West nominated for shitload of Grammys. [THR]
· Snarkster comedian Michael Ian Black loses out to Craig Ferguson (say it with us now: "Who the fuck is that?") in the sweepstakes to host CBS's Late Late Show. We think they made up the name "Craig Ferguson" just so Craig Kilborn can sneak back on the air without losing face. [THR]

· Fresh from getting canned by Pat "The Iron Flack" Kingsley, former PMK/HBH No.2 Leslee Dart opens her own company—with a nice stable of her former PMK clients. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Ashton Kutcher looks to star in the drama Random Acts of Kindness, about a suicidal young man who is rescued by a reclusive novelist. The "rescued" in the logline suggest that the novelist doesn't fail in thwarting a Kutcher suicide, so interest in the project should immediately wane. [THR]
· Peter Sarsgaard joins Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx in the Sam Mendes Gulf War project, Jarhead. Sarsgaard probably won't get the opportunity for any on-screen Kinsey-style full-frontal antics, but then again, don't ask, don't tell, etc etc. [Variety]
· Touchstone Television rewards Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry with a three-year, seven-figure overall deal. What does ABC owe him for saving their network? [THR]
· Renny Harlin will develop and direct a film based the graphic novel Full Moon Fever, in which workers on the moon who are attacked by werewolves. The producers should probably double-check that Harlin is still alive before they start casting those werewolves. [Variety]

· Nicole Kidman will star in the Robert Evans-produced (apparently he's making time to produce in between hottubbing with Brett Ratner and planning his Broadway show) romantic comedy Wedding Season. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Chris Columbus will direct an adaptation from the dregs of Marvel Comics' hero stable, The Sub-Mariner. They're not going to waste any of the good characters on Columbus. [THR]
· The always-innovative Fox picks up "Lost, but on the moon!" pilot Darkside. Prepare yourselves for their coming "Desperate Housewives, but underwater!" project. [Variety]
· New Line Cinema acquires the rights to He's Just Not That Into You, with the book's writers Greg Behrendt amd Liz Tuccillo adapting the non-fiction blockbuster bestseller for the screen. In a related story, we are planning on killing ourselves as a Sex and the City rerun plays in the background. [THR]
· Shitergy Report: NBC Universal sells the syndication rights for Law & Order: Criminal Intent for a record $1.92 mil an episode to sister company USA and sister channel Bravo. [Variety]