The new Hollywood Momentum (think Cat Fancy for assistants, but with fewer cats and more aggrieved call-rollers) is hot off the e-presses. In this week's featured "Screamer" (a tale of woe from the assistant frontlines, an endlessly renewable resource), a former assistant signs his own pinkslip by failing in his appointed Koo Koo Roo rounds for an unnamed, veggie-fixated C-list actor:
With the cornucopia of obviously legitimate, anonymously-proffered opportunities for struggling actors streaming through Craigslist on a daily basis, we're amazed that the local service industry hasn't been totally depleted of its workforce. Here's yet another chance for the subjugated thespian to throw off the chains of his apron-flair and take control of his destiny:
· Batman Begins opens today and will expand to 3,858 locations by Friday, an onslaught that Warner Bros. hopes can overcome some of the damage that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise have done to its promotion. [Variety]
· The post-acquittal sleepover parties at the Ranch haven't even ended, and already the Jackson family is shopping a reality show. However, the famed bedroom will be closed to any camera operators over the age of 13. [THR]
· Vin Diesel is attached to star in Fox's adaptation of the videogame Hitman. Our sources reveal that Diesel's The Pacifier co-star Gary the Duck was approached about the role first, but declined because he's "too big for that Xbox shit." [Variety]
· Dancing with the Stars was the week's most-watched show, proving that ideas that seem like bad Mad TV parodies of reality television can be viable hits. [THR]
· Disney wants to cast the new, do-anything-for-a-buck version of Robert DeNiro as the husband of Meryl Streep's female president in Disney's descriptively-titled First Man. [Variety]
Skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone (still kicking it in the boardroom, even at 117 years young!) sat down with the LAT to discuss the announced division of his unwieldy conglomerate, serve notice to any whippersnapper family members and/or aspiring galactic dictators who salivate over the thought of picking his old bones clean, and announce his plans for immortality.
The NYT reports that the braintrust behind Cinderella Man met on Tuesday to try and make some sense of the movie's failure at the box office. (Of course, Russell Crowe's ill-timed bludgeoning of a hotel clerk didn't help, but wasn't seen as the deal-breaker.) Let the wringing of the hands, the gnashing of the teeth, and the wailing to a Creator who's cruelly indifferent to period boxing movies commence!
· The Butterscotch Stallion calls himself a "wild mustang," which prompts a reporter to get him to admit he knows all about his magnificent moniker. Our work here is done.
· NAMBLA embraces MJ, but will that support waver when they discover he's controversially reversing his boys-in-the-bed policy? [via Fishbowl LA]
· Buy the shirt, get the anti-Mark Cuban rant for free.
· Overzealous telecommunications enthusiast Russell Crowe is taking the fall for Cinderella Man shitting the box office bed.
· Katie Holmes gets audited.
· Writer/director/producer Franc "Empire" Reyes will be on hand at Voz-Box at Cinespace tonight for a 90 minute interview session, during which all of John Leguizamo's darkest secrets will be revealed (and perhaps there wi'll be chat about Reyes' new projects). But be forewarned: the website encourages people to bring their headshots and reels. Anarchy may rule the night.
· A Very Big Night In Music: Wilco at the Greek; Doves at the Wiltern, X at the Fonda, Stephen Malkmus at El Rey; Bright Eyes and the Faint at the Grand Olympic Auditorium; The Raveonettes at Spaceland.
· Gigi Levangie Grazer, wife of the Immortal Brian Grazer and recent media darling, signs her book The Starter Wife at Brentano’s in Century City.
Please, Mr. Drudge, take off the rhinestone-spangled glove and step away from the computer. We know that the trial was really hard on you, but unless there's something you're not telling us, you are not actually Michael Jackson and the DA does not have pictures of your barber pole.
In a shocking development that is likely to rock Hollywood and immediately plunge the baked goods industry into a depression, Tom Cruise proves that not even coworkers are insulated from his efforts to prove his incredibly sincere love of Katie Holmes. A spy on the Paramount lot passes along the tale of an MI:3 meeting that took place yesterday:
Viacom's board has approved the long-discussed split of the behemoth conglomerate into two somewhat smaller behemoths. Former co-presidents Les Moonves and Tom Freston will each run their own fiefdom, with Moonves taking over CBS Corp. (CBS network, Paramount Television, radio holdings, etc), and Freston topping Viacom, Inc. (Paramount Pictures, MTV Networks, various cable channels, pimped rides), but we're not going to get into the boring details any more deeply than we already have. While Freston has suddenly found himself a lot less likely to be snuffed out with a Cribs-branded pillow by Moonves once his co-presidency became "inconvenient" to the generously-betoothed future galactic dictator's plans for world domination, it seems that Moonves suddenly finds his potential resources drastically reduced. Cutbacks in his army of 50-foot robots may be announced (barring a big boost from Wall Street), temporarily delaying his plans to deploy the army to kick off an invasion by kidnapping rival Jeff Zucker and submitting him to the public humiliation of a automaton-applied rusty trombone.
A fun game to kick off your lunch hour: Which of these people are celebrating Michael Jackson's acquittal, which have seen Jesus descend from the sky to reward the faithful during the Rapture, and which are doing The Cruise? Answers after the jump.
You know the drill: Every time an agent throws off his ten-percent shackles (the cuffs always seem shinier on the other side of Wilshire), Endeavor's Ari Emanuel twinkles that winning smile. Rumors are circulating that agents Alan Gasmer, Mike Sheresky, Ramses Ishak, David Lubliner and a player to be named later have served their notice at William Morris and are headed to parts unknown. If they're still hanging around the office, the WMA gang better pat them down when they check out for lunch—staplers, Post-It notes, and client files hastily stuffed down pants aren't acceptable parting gifts. Developing...
· Clive Owen is finalizing the details to star in Shoot-Em-Up for New Line, an "ultraviolent" flick with scenes that include "a shootout during a sex scene and another in the midst of a freefall." We don't want to fall prey to the hype machine, but this may turn out to be the greatest movie ever made. [Variety]
· Director James Cameron seems torn about which 3D project to pay attention to, reportedly moving his focus from next announced project Battle Angel to mysterious, "parallel" Project 880. Also, it's been a long time, so refresh our memory—is Cameron the Titanic guy or the Cutthroat Island guy? [THR]
· Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz chooses a showrunning deal for future AD seasons over a potentially more lucrative development deal, opting to be yanked around on a single, continuing project instead of a bunch of new ones. [Variety]
· Despite news specials exploring yesterday's Jackson-related Armageddon, Fox's Hell's Kitchen still pulls good ratings. [THR]
· War of the Worlds is premiering all over the world, where canny translators provided by the studio may be able to mitigate some of the damage Cruise may do on international red carpets. [Variety]
TV Week reports that some of the Native American extras in the Steven Spielberg-produced Into The West have complained about mistreatment during the grueling shooting of the TNT miniseries:
