· CBS has quietly set up preview screenings of Kid Nation at elementary schools in major markets for students, parents, and teachers, where families can come together and discuss the exciting child-labor-law issues raised by the controversial new series, as well as receive assurances from the network that no children were eaten by bears during the show's production, even though that unlikely eventuality was covered by that now-infamous waiver. [Variety]
· HBO Films greenlights a feature version of Grey Gardens, the 1975 crazy-cat-lady documentary that has also recently spawned a crazy-cat-lady Broadway musical, and which will star Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. [THR]
· In an onscreen pairing that will result in a dramatic showdown between the dreamiest and the sleepiest sets of blue eyes in all of Young Hollywood, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire are in negotiations to join Brothers, director Jim Sheridan's remake of a Danish-language war drama. Our prediction: after their first shared scene, Maguire locks himself in his trailer, ashamed that his orbs will never sparkle like Gyllenhaal's. [Variety]
· Star Trek's JJ Abrams chooses Zoe Saldana as the new Uhura. [THR]
· Huzzah! The Fall TV season is here! And while we didn't watch the solidly rated premiere of Fox's K-ville last night, it's nice to know that we have finally something to neglect besides shows about remembering karaoke lyrics. [Variety]

· NBC might be aborting the only new comedy it was planning to launch this year, its midseason adaptation of the British sitcom The IT Crowd—a potentially surprising development given that newly installed programming rock-star Ben Silverman's entire development philosophy involves the recycling of foreign hits for American eyeballs. [THR]
· At first, we misread the headline "Emmys party circuit heats up" as "Emmys circuit party heats up," a mistake that left us momentarily impressed by Variety's willingness to explore the awards season sexual subculture. Unfortunately, once we figured out our error, the actual story about the battle between ET/People and TV Guide to throw the best, thoroughly vanilla Emmy bash lost much of its sizzle. [Variety]
· Ricky Gervais plots his post-Extras career, taking the starring role in This Side of Truth, a comedy about the first liar in an all-truth world he co-wrote and will co-direct with partner Matt Robinson. [Variety]
· My So-Called Life and thirtysomething creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are resurrecting Quarterlife, a pilot once killed by ABC, on MySpace, where it will hopefully be watched by millions of "creative twentysomethings" similar to its "constantly blogging" main character. We further expect some Flickring and Twittering to be integrated into its cutting-edge cyberplot. [THR]
· Lavishly golden-parachuted former Viacom execs Tom Freston and Jonathan Dolgen are pouring some of their severance cash into Michael Eisner's Veoh YouTube clone, having been told by hip financial advisors that "the kids love them some virals." [Variety]

· In case you haven't heard, Jon Stewart is going to host the Oscars again. Obligatory press release self-deprecation follows: "I'm thrilled to be asked to host the Academy Awards for the second time because, as they say, the third time's the charm." [Variety, THR]
· NBC greenlights a pilot for Rat Entertainment's cop drama Blue Blood, a project that will see the collision of irresistible party-boy force Brett Ratner with immovable rock-star object Ben Silverman, unleashing a wave of good-time energy that will likely reduce all of Hollywood to smoldering rubble. [Variety]
· The next time Hell's Kitchen star Gordon Ramsay sears his scrotum on a hot oven, it will be an Endeavor agent who holds the bowl of ice water into which he can dip his still-sizzling testes. [THR]
· Fight Club alter-egos Brad Pitt and Edward Norton reteam for Universal's State of Play, a feature adaptation of the British miniseries about a journalist's investigation into the murder of a congressman's girlfriend. We're unfamiliar with the source material, so we won't promise any scenes in which the duo strip off their shirts and stage a much-clamored-for FC rematch. [Variety]
· The Weinstein Company's $2-2.5 million purchase of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, ahem, reanimates the Toronto Fest market. [THR]

· Because that weekend-house mortgage isn't going to pay itself, Don Cheadle signs on for the Emma Roberts vehicle Hotel for Dogs (plot more or less self-explanatory). [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Lightcycles Edition: Newly assigned Logan's Run director Joseph Kosinski is in "final negotiations to develop and direct" a new Tron movie from a top-secret idea by two Lost writers, a cutting-edge take rumored to involve Tron Guy's efforts to escape the YouTubes after being digitized into the viral video world by the evil Master Control Program. [THR]
· Fear of the looming labor apocalypse leads Roman Polanski to withdraw from his megabudgeted Pompeii project. [Variety]
· Cinea discontinues production of the magical, privacy-preventing DVD player that could play enchanted Oscar screeners issued by the MPAA's copyright-respecting wizards. [THR]
· Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson's Dreamgirls catfighting experience should come in handy on the set of the Sex and the City movie, where she'll play Carrie Bradshaw's assistant. [Variety]

· Ang Lee takes home the Golden Lion for Lust, Caution at the Venice Film fest, the movie you may remember as the recent victim of the MPAA's dreaded NC-17 rating because of its "graphic, artsy-fartsy depiction of fucking." [Variety]
· Gus Van Sant attaches Sean Penn and Matt Damon to his long-in-development biopic of openly gay politician Harvey Milk, with Penn playing Milk and Damon taking the role of his suddenly likable assassin. Tomorrow, competing Milk project director Bryan Singer will escalate the casting arms race by announcing he's got Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt "this close" to signing on to his Mayor of Castro Street adaptation. [THR]
· The Creative Arts Emmys are topped by—surprise!—HBO, with 15 statues. [Variety]
· NBC destroys its Sunday night Nielsen competition with the season debut of Sunday Night Football. [THR]
· In other unsurprising, awards-related news, Gil Cates will be back to produce the Oscars a record-breaking 14th time, which he promises "will be just as overlong and filled with inscrutable interpretive-dance numbers as my 2006 triumph." [Variety]

Because we know that you'd never forgive us if we neglected to inform you of the opportunity to possibly fulfill your childhood dream of battling intimidatingly muscled spandex-unitard models while encased in an enormous steel hamster ball, we want to make sure you know that the Gold's Gym in Venice will be holding an opening casting call tomorrow for NBC's recently announced American Gladiators revival. Excitingly, they'll be looking both for potential gladiators and their civilian quarry during the mass audition:

· Will Smith re-teams with his Pursuit of Happyness creatives for Seven Pounds, the story of a guy who falls in love while trying to kill himself [Ed.note—Isn't it a little tacky to be announcing a suicide movie so soon after the Owen incident? Just sayin'.], hoping that audiences will shed just as many tears watching Smith nobly overcome personal adversity as they did when he was hugging his kid while sleeping in that filthy Happyness bathroom. [Variety]
· Audiences will get a chance to see David Duchovny try to fuck away the pain of being a writer for another twelve episodes, as Showtime gives Californication a second season pick-up. [THR]
· Apple keeps trying to drive away the Hollywood content partners that just want to love them, proposing to cut the price of TV episodes to 99 cents. [Variety]
· Rupert Murdoch gets a pay raise to $24.3 million per year, but still officially makes less than News Corp second banana Peter Chernin. [THR]
· And in other continuing-cinematic-love-affair news, Joaquin Phoenix and director James Gray can't get enough of each other, teaming up for the third time for the drama Two Lovers. [Variety]

· The trades mourn the recent silencing of their favorite of the Three Tenors. [Variety, THR] [THR]
· Scott Rudin beats out Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, and New Line for the movie rights to the historical novel I, Claudius, with Leo DiCaprio and his The Departed screenwriter William Monahan expected to jump ship from their failed WB bid to join the winning Rudin team. [Variety]
· The Agent Dance, East Coast Edition: NY-based CAA bigshot Bart Walker leaves the evil agenting monolith to form a talent management division at indie film powerhouse Cinetic. We expect reports of the mysterious torching of Walker's apartment to emerge shortly. [THR]
· Apple and Hollywood still can't decide whether to fuck or fight. [Variety]
· Studio execs head into the Toronto Film Festival with "fat wallets and a healthy appetite for product," ready to snap up any movie they think might make a buck during a possible strike by the guilds. [Variety]

· Sacha Baron Cohen is "firming plans" to star in Bruno (but aren't they already shooting that one? Sneaky!), then will move on to Dinner for Schmucks, a remake of Francis Veber's Le Diner de Cons, a comedy about a dinner guest whose manners would shame even the tableside-feces-proferring Borat. [Variety]
· TBS orders a second season of The Bill Engvall Show, keeping the weakest member of the Blue Collar Comedy family working for an additional ten episodes. [THR]
· Var provides a blow-by-blow of the Whoopi Goldberg's controversial, Vick-defending first day on The View. [Variety]
· TV viewers desperate for the networks' new Fall programming to begin settle for watching CBS placeholders Power of 10 and Big Brother 8 on Tuesday night. [THR]
· Pedro Almodovar pre-casting shocker! The Spanish auteur plans on giving Penelope Cruz the starring role in the film he's currently writing. [Variety]

· Starz tries its hand at scripted programming, hoping not to jar viewers expecting to see famous faces on their rerun movies by centering its strategy around two celeb-driven half-hour comedies: one about a house-renovating TV show and one about a shrink-to-the-affordable-celebrity-guest-stars. [Variety]
· Endeavor welcomes fussy Six Feet Under funeral director and Dexter psychopath Michael C. Hall into the family. [THR]
· The just-concluded Telluride Film Festival snags 12 world premieres, including Dylan biopic I'm Not There and Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding. [Variety]
· Perhaps tiring of hearing about how Jason Bourne could easily kick James Bond's ass, the producers of Bond 22 bring on Bourne franchise action designer Dan Bradley as their second unit director. [THR]
· ABC promises that it will hire a fifth View co-host soon, probably before Elizabeth Hasselbeck leaves to pop out the baby she's seemingly been carrying for two years. [THR]

· Realizing that no matter what their vision was going in for a long-planned, big-screen adaptation of Dallas, the final result would be hilarious, Regency and 20th Century have finally decided to just give up and officially make it as a comedy. Betty Thomas will direct, and John Travolta will still star as JR Ewing, playing the part in only a slightly bigger fashion as a nod to the project's new direction. [Variety]
· Once again, the DGA refuses to allow For Your Consideration DVD screeners to be sent to members for their yearly awards, forcing guild members to schlep out to screenings to see their peers' work presented as it was intended. [THR]
· Following the less-than-blockbuster results of promotions for movies like Akeelah and the Bee and Arctic Tale, Hollywood is discovering that Starbucks might not be marketing monolith that they'd had hoped it would be. Several studios are now considering scaled-back versions of the failing Starbucks experiment, such as planting paid confederates to sit by the door of The Coffee Bean and loudly shout into a cellphone about how much they loved a partner's movie. [Variety]
· It's about time someone made a RenFair comedy*: Universal buys the Rainn Wilson project Renaissance Man, about two community theater actors who hide out a renaissance fair after thinking they've killed one of their co-stars. (*For real; and no, we don't count that one part in The Cable Guy.) [THR]
· Focus Features accepts the MPAA's NC-17 rating for Ang Lee's erotically charged espionage thriller Lust, Caution for "too many scenes of artsy-fartsy fucking." [Variety]

· Hollywood Out of Directors: "Dimension Films has set a November 26 start date for Comeback, an inspirational sports drama that Ice Cube will star in and produce. Fred Durst will direct." [Variety]
· 13.9 million viewers tuned in to watch The Hoff declare the guy with his hand up a turtle puppet's ass the Most Talented Man in America. [THR]
· FX greenlights Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy's transsexual drama 4 oz., but since the pitch was bought in the room by president John Landegraf, the central tranny's vocation has been changed from sportswriter to gynecologist. (Was it originally too close to the story of the LAT's Mike Penner/Christine Daniels?) Murphy ambitiously envisions his protagonist's journey from male ladydoctor to lady ladydoctor to unfold over four seasons. [Variety]
· A study claims that people's internet-time is now rivaling their TV-time, a finding that the studios will do their best to ignore during their fight with the various guilds over online residuals. [THR]
· Joey Fatone is trying to become TV Guide Channel's budget-friendly answer to Ryan Seacrest. [Variety]

· Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are in talks to star in a film version of the musical Nine for the Weinstein Co; when reached for comment on his potential cast, Harvey Weinstein said, "I may be jumping the gun, but if Penelope doesn't get nominated, I'll willingly blind myself with a rusty salad fork." [Variety]
· Noted liberal Janeane Garofalo (she even had an Air America show!) is joining the cast of 24 this season; oh, to be a fly on the wall overhearing the debates she'll be having with self-described "right-wing nutjob" co-creator Joel Surnow at the craft services table! Surnow, of course, can always retaliate for any political acrimony by having Jack Bauer torture her government agent character with a belt sander for suspected collusion with terrorists. [THR]
· Paramount chooses sides in the scintillating hi-def DVD format war, aligning with HD-DVD over Blu-Ray. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Your Head Will Explode If You Have An Original Thought After The Age of 30 Edition: Warner Bros. pulls a long-gestating remake of Logan's Run off the shelf, handing the project over to commercial director Joseph Kosinski for his feature debut. [THR]
· Hairspray becomes just the tenth musical to cross the $100 million mark in domestic box office, proving that there was, in fact, a healthy market for John Travolta in terrifying housefrau drag. [Variety]

· High School Musical 2 pulls in a staggering 17.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched basic cable show ever. And we still have only the vaguest idea of what it is beyond some footage of that kid who's too tan singing. [Variety]
· Jason Biggs and Lizzy Caplan sign up for second banana duty on the the Kate Hudson/Dane Cook comedy Bachelor No. 2, playing the BFFs who must cope with the hilarious antics of their higher-billed castmates. [THR]
· Nerdgasm alert! Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell is joining the cast of Heroes, which apparently won a battle with Lost for her services on a multi-episode arc. [Variety]
· Jessica Lucas is added to the talent roster of CSI, but officially not as a replacement for Jorja Fox's possibly-dead character Sara. [THR]
· Hollywood's Random Romantic Comedy Cast Generator spits out a pairing of Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston for an adaptation of the bestseller Marley and Me, the story of a couple who adopt a dog as a trial run for parenthood. Spoiler alert: Thing's don't go well at first, but in the end, everyone learns lessons about love, adulthood, and responsibility! [Variety]

· Jamie Foxx effectively pre-nominates himself for a future Oscar by signing on to star in the DreamWorks drama The Soloist, based on a true story of Nathan Ayers, a homeless, schizophrenic Julliard dropout who plays his violin and cello on the streets of downtown LA, and who developed a special friendship with LAT columnist Steve Lopez. Our hearts are already warmed on the logline alone. [Variety]
· We're overjoyed by the news that HBO has picked up Flight of the Conchords (for our money, the funniest show on TV) for a second season, but thoroughly ambivalent that Entourage is getting a fifth. [THR]
· Former ICMer Ed Limato and his A-list roster of clients (Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson, Richard Gere, Steve Martin, Michael Biehn. Wait, Michael Biehn?) end up at William Morris. But most importantly, Limato and new boss Jim Wiatt are still deciding whether or not they'll continue the agent's geriatric pre-Oscar blowout. [Variety]
· Scarlett Johansson is trying to book every available job in town before the strike hits. [THR]
· Dakota Fanning will team up with Djimon Hounsou and that guy from the Fantasic Four (the firey one, not the rubbery one, we think) on the thriller Push, about "a group of young American ex-pats with telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities who hide from a U.S. government agency in Hong Kong and band together to try to escape the control of the division." Whew, no mention of rape. We're relieved Fanning's doing something lighter and not revisiting that regrettable phase of her career. [Variety]

· These screenwriter people are so hot right now! Fox plans to offer the well-regarded members of the Writing Partners collective (including Ted "Pirates" Elliot and Terry "Of the Caribbean" Rossio, John "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" August, and others) a deal where they accept small upfront payments for their original specs in exchange for greater creative control and gross profit participation. It should be fun the first time Fox begs one the newly empowered writers to fire himself in favor of someone who can solve his third-act problems. [Variety]
· The Emancipation of Gigi continues apace: Gigi Levangie, the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Brian Grazer, will have her novel Maneater adapted into a Lifetime miniseries that the network hopes will put up numbers similar to the ones generated by her previous collaboration with USA on The Starter Wife. We hope we at least get another fun Wac-a-Mole-style game (Eat-a-Grazer?) out of it. [THR]
· The season three premiere of Weeds was the series' most-watched episode to date, boosting the fortunes of lead-out Californication, which became the highest-rated non-Kirstie-Alley comedy debut in Showtime's history. [Variety]
· Michael "George Michael" Cera, for whom we think virtually ever movie made should create at least a small role, will star in the adaptation of the C.D. Payne novel Youth in Revolt. [THR]
· Fox orders seven episodes of Nothing But the Truth, a gameshow in which contestants are hooked up to a lie detector and forced to answer humiliating personal questions as friends and family watch. Also, each detected lie will result in a Japanese man striking the unlucky dissembler in the genitals. [Variety]

The conviction with which delightfully eccentric actor Val Kilmer delves into his roles is the stuff of Hollywood legend—the stories from the set of The Doors alone could fill a book, such as the time he climbed naked onto a buffet spread, and, channeling Jim Morrison, proceeded to smear low-fat cream cheese on his privates while declaring himself the "Craft Services King." There's no telling, then, what Kilmer could have done with the part of Adolph Hitler, a role he was set to play in the sequel to The Hebrew Hammer, before mysteriously pulling out:

· Don Imus earns a multi-million dollar windfall for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." Nicely played, CBS! [Variety]
· Disney adds Bernie Mac to a magical Old Dogs cast that already includes John Travolta and Robin Williams; Mac will play the part of the take-no-shit character that glowers out from the one-sheet as his harried co-stars are run ragged by the 7-year-old twins they have no idea how to care for. [THR]
· Rosario Dawson hitches her wagon to Shia Labeouf's quickly rising star, signing on for the DreamWorks thriller Eagle Eye. [Variety]
· Fox's late-summer crap (the Hell's Kitchen finale and a new episode of So You Think You Can Dance) easily wins Monday night against other network's rerun garbage. [THR]
· NBC cordially invites the loyal viewers of Today to choke on a new, fourth hour of their beloved morning chatfest. [Variety]

Bollywood sex symbol and former Celebrity Big Brother UK contestant Shilpa Shetty is being wooed by the producers of the next Bond film to play the superspy's love interest, reports Metro:

· James Gandolfini and HBO's eight-year relationship is still going strong, as The Artist Who Will Forever Be Known As Tony will star in and produce the movie ABCD Camp, in which he'll play Sonny Vaccaro, the guy who signed Michael Jordan to the first million dollar shoe deal. [Variety]
· The trades eulogize Merv Griffin, but no review of the TV mogul's legacy could be as poignant as three minutes spent watching "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts." [Variety, THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, To Crush My Enemies, To See Them Driven Before Me, and To Hear The Lamentations of the D-Girls Edition: Millenium Films pays a seven figures for the rights to make a new series of Conan the Barbarian movies. There's no word about whether Arnold Schwarzenegger would be willing to abandon his political career for a shot at reprising one of his most successful roles. (But wishful thinking on the matter is nonetheless encouraged.) [Variety]
· Joseph Gordon-Levitt still keeping it real, signing on for two more indie features. Don't worry, eventually Hollywood will break him they way it did Sevigny and Posey. [THR]
· All of this strike talk is really fucking up some rich people's summer vacations. [Variety]