According to today's Variety, the relentlessly versatile Jake Gyllenhaal will soon pad a resume filled with iconic turns as dreamy-eyed cowboy bottoms and disaffected, clothes-averse Marines by taking on the role of flamboyant Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, who delighted NY sports fans of the 60s and 70s with his guaranteed Super Bowl victory, sideline modeling sessions of the latest in fur-coat fashions, and scene-stealing Brady Bunch cameos.

· A brave Carson Daly will be the first late-night talk show host to cross the picket line and attempt to return to work without a writing staff; upon his arrival at the studio, Daly will be awkwardly reminded by a security guard that his show was canceled two years ago. [THR]
· I'm Not There, expected to duke it out in every Oscar category you got with similarly ambitious music biopic Walk Hard, leads the Independent Spirit Award nominations with four. Angelina Jolie flop A Mighty Heart and Ang Lee's artsy, NC-17 fuckfest Lust, Caution received three nods each. [Variety]

· A rebounding Universal tries to shake off its recent jilting by Brad Pitt by climbing into bed with Russell Crowe, inviting the actor to partake of Pitt's State of Play sloppy seconds. [Variety]
· Even though it feels like there's been nothing good to watch on HBO since the end of The Sopranos (Flight of the Conchords notwithstanding), the network's subscriber numbers have actually risen slightly since the Best TV Show in The History Of The World went off the air. We suppose we have no chose but to credit (at least in part) all the fucking on Tell Me You Love Me for retaining viewer interest. [THR]

· Hollywood, always more than happy to turn the multiplex into a refuge from your bickering, turkey-stuffed, dysfunctional family, is putting seven movies into wide release this Thanksgiving weekend. Send the bratty kids to Enchanted while you watch Javier Bardem dispassionately slaughter everyone unlucky enough to cross his death-dealing path in No Country for Old Men. [Variety]
· In what may be the most brilliant (or deranged?) voiceover casting in the history of animated film, the following trio are on board for Disney's G-Force, the story of some fuzzy animals who try to thwart a crazy billionaire's dreams of world domination: "[Nic] Cage will play Speckles, a mole; [Steve] Buscemi will portray Bucky, a hamster; and [Tracy] Morgan will voice Blaster, a guinea pig." [THR]

· Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are cast in Kevin Smith's Zach and Miri Make a Porno, the story of two platonic friends who try to use the power of hardcore pornography to solve their debt problems. As the actors previously appeared together in The 40 Year Old Virgin, this film represents the kind of re-teaming effort that drives us so wild with delight. [Variety]
· In one of the final Thursday night shoot-outs at the Nielsen Corral before the networks expend all of their first-run-episode ammunition, CBS defeats ABC. [THR]

· Jamie Foxx signs a two-year deal to produce unscripted shows for MTV and VH1, with the first product of their new union being From Gs to Gents, a series "in which a group of men are given social makeovers in a bid to turn them into gentlemen," efforts that a guest-starring Foxx will entertainingly attempt to thwart by dragging them to nightclubs, pouring alcohol down their throats, and urging them to "make it rain" upon nearby members of the opposite sex. [Variety]
· DreamWorks/Paramount is discovering that they have their work cut out for them in trying to simultaneously sell an R-rated musical about a bloodthirsty British hair stylist to the different segments of the film's built-in, but hopelessly fragmented, audience. Potentially ineffective ads telling moviegoers "You've seen him flounce around on a pirate ship, now see him dance around the world's scariest barber's chair" to follow. [THR]

· NBC drops out of the Television Critics Association winter press tour due to the writers strike, a move that will rob reporters of the chance to witness a retaliatory beatdown of Peacock perfect storm Ben Silverman by the network-running rivals he recently disparaged as "D-girls". [Variety]
· Entourage's Kevin Dillon joins Emma Roberts, Don Cheadle and Lisa Kudrow in hotly anticipated canine-housing drama Hotel for Dogs. [THR]
· Wistfully envisioning a time when writers and studios can once again skip down Hollywood Blvd hand-in-hand, New Line signs Neil LaBute to script a remake of The Woman Next Door once the strike is over. Helen Mirren's husband [Ed. note—HAAACKFORD!] to direct. [Variety]

· The Writers' Guild of Great Britain says they're in solidarity with the WGA, and is planning to stage an awards ceremony on Sunday to remind the world that scribes are to be cherished and celebrated, not placed in front of studio gates for SUV target practice. [Variety]
· This year's Oscar contenders display a "bleak, even nihilistic worldview," a largely coincidental development as all were put into production long before Hollywood's collective spirits were darkened by the ongoing labor Armageddon. Should the strike drag on into February, look for replacement host Ryan Seacrest to provide an appropriately somber tone to the proceedings. [THR]
· The Pinkett-Smith family is getting together to make the drama The Human Contract, a film Jada is directing and writing and Will is executive producing. No role is specified for precocious son Jaden, though he may eventually be awarded an associate producer credit for secretly punching up the script during trips to the set with mom and dad. [ Variety]

· Even though the WGA strike might wipe out a significant portion of this so-far underwhelming Fall season, there's still some good news for TV: most shows have produced enough episodes that the Academy may not have to cancel the Emmys, an awards show that rivals the average picket line in thrills-per-minute even in years when it's not hampered by labor strife. [Variety]
· E! further fortifies its lineup of strike-proof programming by picking up a second season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a show they can easily spin off into separate series following each member of the Hollywood's bustiest, semifamous family should the need for even more mindless schedule-filler arise. [THR]

· The writers strike could result in a windfall for Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, who are reportedly in talks with NBC for the acquisition of blogtastic new online series Quarterlife, which is scheduled to premiere on the MySpaces on Sunday. If the alleged deal should fall through, forward-thinking network president Ben Silverman will announce that once he's out of new episodes of Bionic Woman, he'll run an hour of grainy YouTube footage of cheerleading-competition bloopers in its place. [THR]
· Had enough of the writers strike yet? Good news: a newer, fresher walkout by the stagehands union could be on its way, forcing Broadway productions to go dark. As we've said before: Strike fever, catch it! [Variety]
· A two-hour, crossover block of CSI/Without a Trace episodes brought CBS a ratings victory Thursday night, as viewers flocked to the network to enjoy every moment of their last few weeks of barely differentiated crime-procedural programming. [THR]

Not long after an aggrieved William Shatner went public with the disappointing news that upcoming Star Trek project director J.J. Abrams decided to place the forcibly retired Enterprise captain inside a coffin-capsule and jettison him out into the endless void of space rather than toss him a token, Trekkie-appeasing cameo, another casting bombshell has been announced: Winona Ryder has signed on to play mom to a Young Spock. Variety identifies Ryder's character as a Vulcan—but, if our fading memory of Trek lore serves, wasn't Spock's mother a human? Is Abrams messing with mythology, or was this just a simple error that will result in the mass delivery of severed, pointy ears to the Var offices in protest? Do let us know, or this will torment us all day long. [Variety]

· Giving the thousands of writers who will descend upon the Fox lot for tomorrow's mass picket a little extra motivation, News Corp. president Peter Chernin claims that his network will save more money from unpaid deals, story, and pilot costs than it stands to lose during a strike. It remains to be seen whether or not Chernin will follow through on a threat to further taunt the WGA by playing a loop of American Idol's theme music at deafening volumes during tomorrow's gathering. [Variety]
·"In the digital domain, content still rules," said Sumner Redstone in a speech touting Viacom's bold commitment to exploring an internet space that he expects "won't yield enough revenue to pay writers for at least the next five or six decades of my life." [THR]

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Can't Blame the Writers For the Current Idea Shortage Edition: Jennifer Connelly—an actress we'd pay $14 dollars to watch knitting a sweater or making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches—will join monosyllabic, paparazzi-punishing superstar Keanu Reeves in Fox's remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. [Variety]
· Big Love polygamist Jeanne Tripplehorn is on board for HBO's movie version of Grey Gardens, playing Jackie O opposite Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore's Big and Little Edies, respectively. THR]
· ABC's Cashmere Mafia might be the first primetime victim of the strike, as the network yanks the new series from its schedule before its originally planned November 27 debut. But good news for those craving Sex and the City-inspired entertainment: NBC hasn't yet abandoned nearly identical project Lipstick Jungle. [Variety]

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Reheated Edition: Sylvester Stallone is in talks to direct and star in an MGM remake of Charles Bronson's 1974 vigilante-justice classic, Death Wish. Stallone's reimagined version, however, will focus on an aging action star who seeks bloody retribution against studio executives who've collectively decided he's too old to carry an original feature. [Variety]
· Spotted on the all-star WGA picket line in front of NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters: 30 Rock's Tina Fey, SNL's Seth Meyers, and The Daily Show's John Oliver. [THR]
· Meanwhile, Meyers and Fey's NBC writer/performer peers from The Office have been ordered to show up at work to perform their acting duties during the strike. [Variety]

· A mere nine years after the first X-Files film surfaced in theaters, Fox announces that the second of Mulder and Scully's big-screen adventures (a reteaming, if you will) will arrive on July 25, 2008, a project that will begin shooting in December in Vancouver, far away from the picket lines of Los Angeles. [Variety]
· Joss Whedon reteams (we love it when people reteam) with former Buffy cast member Eliza Dushku for Fox's Dollhouse, getting a seven-episode commitment from the network for an idea that struck Whedon in between bites of a Caesar salad while lunching with the actress. [THR]

· Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman are frantically finalizing the shooting script of Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons before the Oct. 31st deadline, hoping that the mad rush towards production won't jeopardize the duo's ability to produce the kind of easily digestible, crowd-pleasing entertainment that always results from their lucrative collaborations. Meanwhile, star Tom Hanks has been presented with a hair-growing schedule that will barely provide the actor with enough time to reproduce his character's signature demi-mullet. Truly, no one is immune from the pressures of the looming™ strike. [Variety]
· In what is always a good sign for a floundering series, The Bionic Woman gets another new showrunner, not even two months after "creative differences" ended NBC's short-lived love affair with Glen Morgan. [THR]

· Why does it take the threat of a strike for people to start cranking out the truly genius ideas? Fox has ordered a script that could generate a Prison Break spin-off set in a women's penitentiary, a project that would be perfect for Michelle Rodriguez once she concludes some previous obligations. [THR]
· ABC's Cavemen inches ever closer to joining Viva Laughlin in the Fall season's "bold TV experiments canceled too soon to see how terrible they could eventually become" club, drawing its lowest key demo ratings to date. Somewhere, Hugh Jackman's wife sheds a tear in sympathy. [Variety]

· Attempting to keep vital a love affair they began back on the set of Gangs of New York, director Martin Scorcese and still-boyish muse Leonardo DiCaprio will reteam once again on Shutter Island, an adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel about a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of a dangerous crazy lady in the 1950s. [Variety]
· ABC picks up the back nine episodes for this season of Pushing Daisies, bringing their order to a full 22 hours of beautifully shot, expensively produced whimsy. You know, unless the writers fulfill the networks' secret wish to wipe out the rest of the TV season. [THR]
· ABC's Samantha Who? posts another "solid" Nielsen performance on Monday night, while NBC's Heroes set a new series low. Also: Dancing with the Stars wins the night behind Marie Osmond's dramatic fainting spell, leading producers to plan a stunt in which Jennie Garth will suffer an orchestrated, on-camera ankle fracture on next week's show. [Variety]

· Peter Jackson's feature adaptation of The Lovely Bones suffers a severe cast downgrade as Mark Wahlberg steps in to replace Ryan Gosling, who's departing the project following the always-popular "creative differences." [Variety]
· Talks are underway to bring a reality series starring Scottish psychic Derek "The Baby Mind Reader" Ogilive to America, centering around his possibly telepathic ability to translate the secret language of an infant's mysterious cries, gurgles, and gassy smiles into something understandable by parents. [THR]
· Superman Returns writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris bail on the franchise, opting not to come back to write a sequel. Warner Bros. denies rumors that the studio is planning on hiring new writers to start the Superman saga over yet again, avoiding the potential Superboy Problem presented by the introduction of Kal-El's bastard, half-Kryptonian offspring introduced in Returns. [Variety]

· Naomi Watts is on board to star in Universal's remake of The Birds, which, thankfully, the studio isn't rushing into production, allowing time for a possible rewrite of the script still in development that could further address the avian-backstory problems they've previously identified in the Hitchcock original. [Variety]
· While Hollywood eagerly awaits the results of the WGA's strike authorization vote, writers and studios won't resume their tug of war over a giant pencil until Monday morning. [THR]