· The House passes the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, which allows up to 6 years in prison for camcording a movie. Still, former MPAA chief Jack Valenti's probably a bit upset that the House passed on the provision that pirates are castrated and forced to eat their own testicles. [THR]
· Columbia self-consciously tries to cast nearly every quality actor in Hollywood to distract from the fact that they're unimaginatively remaking yet another classic movie, trying to add Meryl Streep to the All the King's Men super-cast. Also assisting the subterfuge are Sean Penn and Jude Law, with Kate Winslet, and Mark Ruffalo to potentially sign on. [THR]
· It's so cute when executive mouths write checks that their studios can't cash: Tom Freston promises less crap from Paramount Pictures. Good one, Tom! Why not just promise us Paramount will find Bin Laden? [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Lion's Gate picks up the rights to A Love Song for Bobby Long. in which we think Scarlett Johansson's old-guy fetish is satisfied by—grab your stomach pills—John Travolta. God, we hope we're wrong on this one. [THR]
· Melissa Etheridge's "reversed Will and Grace with a kid" sitcom gets a script commitment at ABC. We don't have any idea what that means, but ABC seems to have bought it. Network TV really needs a few more nonthreatening gays who constantly make puns about how gay they are, so why not? [THR]

· Since the term "celebutante skank" has no analog outside of America, Paris Hilton is getting left behind. The Simple Life will be reborn in Belgian and French Canadian versions, featuring new, region-specific non-heiresses getting into wacky situations. [THR]
· Steve Zahn joins Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz in cast of Fox's comic western Bandidas. Finally, a follow-up to Three Amigos! But with hot chicks with impenetrable accents! [THR]
· Greedy Emmy-hoarder Mike Nichols and Julia Roberts are in talks to develop romantic comedy Seven Year Switch, about a woman who gets to see what she might have done different in her life upon reaching the seven-year mark in her relationship. Insert joke about the odds that a Julia Roberts marriage will last seven years. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Fox orders a pilot presentation of The Barenaked Ladies Variety Show, a comedy/revue starring the annoying Canadian pop stars. Doesn't Fox know that we're supposed to dump our shit over the northern borders and not take any back? That's what a trade imbalance is all about. [THR]
· With each having an Oscar-baiting movie being released later this year, Annette Bening and Lenonardo DiCaprio will pretend to care that they're being honored at the upcoming Hollywood Film Festival. [THR]

· The DGA agrees on a new three year deal with the networks and studios, getting better health care, but losing out on issues of DVD residuals and reality TV jurisdiction. The WGA's strategy of sitting around and seeing what the directors could get has officially come back to bite them on their collective-bargaining asses. [Variety, sub. req'd]
· SAG shows the status-quo-loving WGA how it's done, using their elections to enact a change in leadership. [THR]
· The MGM and Sony deal is finally done, freeing us up to never think about it again. Well, at least until the layoffs start. [THR]

· Walt Disney Co. President and COO Bob Iger can sleep easier knowing that he's at the only internal candidate to replace CEO Michael Eisner. But he shouldn't sleep too soundly, as Eisner is consulting with voodoo priestesses on a hex that will cause Iger and Eisner to swap bodies the moment a succession occurs. [THR]
· CBS reaches a pilot deal for the Jerry Bruckheimer drama American Crime, examining the criminal impulse in a Midwestern suburb. Maybe we're being unfair because this one doesn't sound like it's part of the franchise, but whatever: We're dismissively branding this one CSI: Winnetka. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Emilio Estevez is cast as the lead in new Warner Bros. sitcom project for ABC, Long Island Sound. Ah, this really takes us back to the good old days, when Estevez and his Anglicized brother Charlie were running roughshod over Hollywood. Our fingers are tightly crossed that this familial resurgence will result in a long-awaited Men at Work sequel. [THR]
· Warner Bros. wants to be in the "Eric Bana as a high-stakes poker player business," handing him the lead in the Curtis Hanson film Lucky You. [THR]
· Miramax will finance and distribute Michael Moore's new health-care industry documentary Sicko. Let's see if Moore turns the camera on Harvey Weinstein and makes sure he's fulfilling his COBRA responsibilities to all those people he just laid off. [Variety, sub. req'd]

· Universal will remake the British TV hit No Angels in America. The edgy drama follows nurses who "work hard by day and play hard by night." Anyone else remember Nightingales? Or Coupling? We look forward to savoring both episodes before the show is yanked. [THR]
· Samuel Goldwyn Films and 20th Century Fox team up for a remake of the French thriller, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. If it worked in France, there's absolutely no way it can be anything other than a huge hit here, right? Maybe they can throw in some naughty British nurses and admit we've given up on new ideas from America. [THR]
· The ratings are in, and the Emmys tanked like, well, an ABC show. They should demand a recount, just in case Garry Shandling's overflowing bile melted a few thousand Nielsen boxes. [THR]
· Rod "The Contender" Lurie signs a two-year deal with Touchstone TV with a two-script commitment, one of which will be the ABC drama pilot Commander In Chief, about the first woman president. Clearly, this will be the perfect opportunity for Paris Hilton to prove her acting chops. [THR]
· Dimension's Scary Movie 3 team of David Zucker, Criag Mazin, and Robert Weiss find yet another movie genre to lamely spoof with Superhero!. Expect endless jokes about wearing tights and the things that bulge when crammed into tights. At least it's not the Wayans Brothers on the job, or we'd really be in trouble with the dick jokes. [Variety, sub. req'd]

· Resident Evil's number one finish helps Milla Jovovich graduate from zombie killing to a (presumably) skinnier indie film paycheck, as she joins on for "domestic abuse with comic elements" film .45. What's a girl got to kill to get a raise and a romantic comedy? [THR]
· Thought dodgeball was the only semi-sport that deserved the over-the-top comedy treatment? Think again, as New Line picks up the ping-pong themed script Balls of Fury from erstwhile The State members Tom Lennon and Ben Garant. We are strangley enthused. [THR]
· Steve Martin and producing partner Joan Stein team up with the creators of the great-in-concept-only-ok-in-reality off-Broadway show Matt and Ben to develop a half hour comedy for the WB. The M and B girls are going to milk Good Will Hunting just as hard as Affleck and Damon did, God bless their hearts. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, the brilliant minds behind Punk'd, get a six episode order from the WB for a "top-secret makeover/dating" series. Hopefully it will involve the torture of celebrities, because otherwise we're not even a little bit interested. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Viacom co-president Tom Freston tries to put a non-Moonves stamp on Paramount, signing up Interscope bigwig Jimmy Iovine and Eminem's manager to first-look feature deal. We hope that Big Les is down with hip-hop, or things could get ugly. [Variety, sub. req'd.]

· The Bourne Supremacy's Karl Urban is set to star in Universal's Doom, setting him up to challenge Milla Jovovich as the top video-game adaptation star. We'd love to know if that's how his managers sold him on the project. [THR]
· Martin Scorcese fails to see a doctor to get approved for insurance, gets sued for breach of contract. Clearly, God is punishing him for his involvement in the Italian-American bashing Shark Tale. [THR]
· New Line purchases the NBA-centered comedy script Heckled and goes after Vince Vaughn for the lead. We recently heard that Vaughn's people are trying to transition him back to drama work, so maybe the heckler New Line wants him to play can kill somebody if they're serious about signing him up. [THR]
· From the studio that brought you the smash international box office sensation Garfield: The Movie comes even more CGI inspiration, Alvin and the Chipmunks. The stunt-casting of Bill Murray probably helped Garfield avoid total disaster, so maybe Fox will try to one-up themselves and get Richard Gere to do a cameo? [THR]

· Stroke of genius or buzz-negating, stunt-casting disaster? Semi-musical block of wood Jessica Simpson will play Daisy Duke in the Dukes of Hazzard movie, alongside the already-cast Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott. Sure, she can fill out a pair of cutoffs, but for the love of God, someone please keep her away from the flaming arrows. [THR]
· Eternally classy, rootin' tootin' studio-headin' brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein reconsider their split from Disney after CEO Michael Eisner's departure announcement. [THR]
· All Eisner, all the time: Former Disney board members Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold (the savedisney.com masterminds) predictably demand that he step down sooner, instead of his leisurely 2006 exit date. And they're on to Eisner's Apprentice-like plans for the next two years, warning the board of "Eisner's brazen attempt to usurp your responsibilities as directors by stage-managing the appointment of his anointed successor." We hope he picks Kwame! [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas XVII: Lovable The O.C. dork Adam Brody will help McG produce a Revenge of the Nerds remake for Fox Searchlight. Brody should know by now that the nerds have already won. [Variety, sub, req'd.]
· Jennifer Garner dumpee Scott Foley gets a development deal at 20th Century Fox, where he will try to drown the thought of Ben Affleck groping his ex-wife in television success. [THR]

This morning, the trades clear up some of the details about Superman director Bryan Singer's near future, and it looks like he's officially in the Warner Brothers stable for a while. Variety reports that he's been signed at WB since Fox tore up his deal and ejected him from their lot when they heard he took over for the flying-averse McG. Singer, meanwhile, "isn't going to contest the studio's request that he vacate his offices on the Fox lot" because that would be a little like putting on the Superman suit to fuck a stuffed Wolverine doll in front of Fox chairman Tom Rothman. Of course, the chances of that tableau unfolding are about as good as those of Singer getting behind the camera for X3.

Ben Affleck has dropped out of the Disney/Bruckheimer production Glory Road less than a month before production begins. Affleck was apparently disappointed with Disney's offered back-end deal. We'd like to go ahead and assume the same problem may have contributed to the demise of his relationship with J. Lo, but nobody gets an engagement ring that big without giving up enough back-end action.

According to today's Variety, mercurial starlet/plastic surgery controversy-magnet Lindsay Lohan is in final negotiations to star in Fox's Lady Luck for $7 million large. Now that she's starting to command serious money, maybe it's time that she takes out a Lloyd's of London policy to protect her "talents" so that she can continue to entertain us for years to come.

Writer Paul Davidson tracks the imaginary journey of a mediocre script by a writer with great, fabricated "buzz," from query letter to eventual mid-six-figure studio deal. Sounds about right to us, though he did leave out the part where the agent stops returning the writer's calls when he figures out all the buzz is gone, and the writer loses sexual function from his fear of inadequacy:

Agents, studio heads, struggling actor/waiters who want to add "/writer" to their imaginery credits: Mike Adamick, the failed writer/visionary who wants someone, anyone to take his action script off his hands via eBay (still no bids) will be on NPR's "Day To Day" at noon PST today. It should be available via their website shortly thereafter. As if hearing eBay Script Guy talk about his attempt to throw Hollywood into turmoil wasn't enough reason to tune in, there's a curious twist: John McEnroe, who apparently happened to be hanging around to promote a new CNBC show, will read an expletive-laden scene from the script. Yes, the tennis/rageoholic John McEnroe. This gets more...interesting by the minute.

Sure, now everyone's "hot" (in the words of THR) to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11. Lions Gate and IFC are "hot" to get F911 into theaters on June 25th, and Showtime is "dripping wet" for the pay-TV rights. Harvey and Bob Weinstein, through their extra-Miramax entity Fellowship Adventure Group (which our demented pal at Gawker helpfully noted abbreviates to F.A.G., a transparent sup to the Gay Mafia) are "hard as a rock" to rake in the cash. Whither documentarian troublemaker Michael Moore? He's "drilling a hole in his Palm d'Or and fucking the fronds off."

Remember, a few, long hours ago, when we told you about the failed writer who's selling his script on eBay? Through the incredible power of Defamer, that script has sold to Paramount Pictures for a million dollars!

We see this at least ten times a day at the Coffee Bean: A writer gives up his dream of a big Hollywood script sale. Does he do what most of us do, quietly attempting an overdose on over-the-counter back pills, then anonymously calling 911 when they decide it would be easier just to get shit-faced? No, this selfless, failed scribe decides to sell his latest script on eBay, willing to transfer all rights to the lucky buyer so that they too can feel like a failed writer.

As if having an almost constant stream of programming dedicated to yapping about the 80's weren't enough, now VH1 is developing a scripted series about the Brat Pack. You know, Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, et al. [Ed.note to Gen.Y—Think of the Brat Pack as the Mickey Mouse Club that spawned Britney, Christina, and Justin, but with more cocaine, more sex with underage girls, more sex with hookers, and more age-inappropriate relationships. But don't worry, your generation will eventually catch up and make you proud.] Casting should be a breeze—many of the Pack are still available at very affordable prices, and are probably willing to spring for the facelifts themselves. But if they get the original Packers, VH1 should definitely institute a BYOB—Bring Your Own Blow—policy, or they're looking at severe budgetary overruns.