Eagle Eye star Shia LaBeouf felt a sharp rush of pain in his left-hand when he attempted to flip off a group of photographers. LaBeouf knew that he could've used his other hand to deliver the bird, but he prefers using his left hand for explicit gestures. LaBeouf explained, "How am I supposed to tell people to leave me alone? Everyone knows that your right hand is only for throwing the peace sign or the Spock hand gesture. Rightie is my lover hand."

The day's fastest-spreading casting rumor intrigues as much for its potential for on-screen carnage as its requisite off-screen tragedy: The man who originated Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street has Billy Bob Thornton pegged to portray the razor-fingered villain in a planned remake. Robert Englund doesn't sound too upset about it, either, informing JoBlo that the Michael Bay-produced reimagining would treat Wes Craven's original with the hacky, high-gloss dignity it deserved 25 years ago. Englund stopped short of suggesting he'd join the film, of course, lest he subject himself to Thornton's infamous scythe-handling clumsiness. Nevertheless, his overall support reminds us what a fertile period it is for the villain in American cinema — and how '80s/'90s-era schlock could stand to benefit from an A-list talent injection. We consulted our own casting department for five ideal remakes, and the stars who might push them over the top:

· George Clooney gets back to what he does best—terrorism, law firms, and car explosions—by buying the rights to The Challenge, a book about the trial of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and driver. [Variety] · Tom Cruise is close to signing on for the lead in The Tourist, a Spyglass remake of 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, about an American abroad made the patsy to flush out a master criminal. Cruise would play the patsy. [Variety] · Las Vegas parking lot nuisance and prematurely ejected HBO head Chris Albrecht has left his job at IMG sports and entertainment management after just one year of a three-year contract. A "terse" statement blamed an inability to "raise substantial funds." [Variety] · Chick-flick-plundering network ABC follows up their pilot-order of a The Witches of Eastwick series with another for a show inspired by Maid In Manhattan. [THR] · Lionsgate has purchased scripts from screenwriting duo Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain for Conan and Amazon, with Scarlett Johansson attached to star in the latter. Open casting call for 3-foot-tall mainland extras to follow. [THR]

While many actors view publicity tours as a necessary evil for promoting their projects, Paris Hilton always struck us as a different breed: the sort of celebrity who makes intermittent, half-hearted screen appearances simply so she'll be able to discuss something, anything on Letterman's couch. However, it now appears that even Paris has her limits. After declining self-promotion for the first time in her life, TMZ reports that she's being sued for it:

Jeremy Piven was all smiles as he left popular Los Angeles steak house STK on Tuesday night. Piven told the lens men he had a delicious steak dinner and was thrilled about Michael Phelps' domination in the summer Olympics. One of the paparazzi wasn't sure if Piven's smile was genuine and asked the Entourage star about his fantasy football team. Piven with a large smile said, "Aaron Rodgers for the win!" then disappeared into the darkness of the Hollywood Hills.

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful, Coverperson: Reality TV Transgender Acceptance Alert! Proving itself once again to be at the forefront of social progress, the competitive reality genre has taken a giant leap forward by selecting its first (openly) transsexual contestant: America's Next Top Model's new season will feature 22-year-old aspiring model Isis, who describes herself as "a woman born physically male." It's a decision GLAAD calls "an unprecedented opportunity for a community that is underrepresented on television." We here at Defamer would like to voice our own wholehearted approval, so long as host Tyra Banks promises to resist using the phrase "smile with your phantom balls" at the judging panel. [Us]

Hints abound today that the wheels may be coming off the souped-up Dark Knight bandwagon — and not just at the box office, where some estimates have Tropic Thunder usurping the top spot this weekend. TDK's sweeping cultural influence may be in jeopardy as well, with its Greatest! Movie! Ever! status now reduced to a nonsensical three-way tie at IMDB and a pair of formidable opponents shaping up across town at Camp Iron Man. In case you missed it, Robert Downey Jr. has already resorted to dramatic efforts of Batsabotage ("Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. ... You know what? F-ck DC comics"), and now jealousy-inspiring actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux has enlisted exactly the kind of metaphorical bitchslap we'd expect from his soaring geekcake talent:

With Tropic Thunder —the product of Ben Stiller's harrowing journey into the heart of retarded darkness— storming multiplexes today, the film's stars are going into promotional hyperdrive. And nothing sells your movie more than some old-fashioned controversy—particularly one in which you're accused of being insensitive to the disabled. (Semitic advocacy groups, meanwhile, surprised everyone by seeing nothing objectionable in Tom Cruise's minstrelsy, Jewface performance.) On the GMA hotseat today was Stiller and co-star Jack Black, both of whom calmly explained that in matters of insensitivity and bodily function, context is everything; framed by the movie's central comedic conceit of actorly self-indulgence, then, not a single dropped R-bomb or ass-bomb should be considered anything other than purely satirical.

Katie Holmes took daughter Suri Cruise to Chelsea Piers in New York City once again last night. While Suri appreciated the outing, she is beginning to feel like all of these late night outings are destroying her sleep schedule. Suri said, "Look Mom, I know that you're supposedly working during the day. Rehearsing and hanging out with the Prom King from Little Children. As if that counts as work. I, on the other hand, am actually doing real work during the day. I'm on the phone with everybody back in the LA office, listening to pitches, attempting to decipher some intern's coverage of a script that I know I won't like but I have to read it anyways because I do a good job, and, I'm playing phone tagging with Shiloh. You'd think it would be easy to get a hold of her since we're in Manhattan and she's on French time, but I don't think her Blackberry gets reception in all way in the boonies. And on top of that, I'm trying to find a little place in Hancock Park. So Mom, maybe tomorrow, we could stay in and order some pizza and I don't know, just take it easy?"

What better après-puff-piece aperitif to follow the NY Times's profile of a content-hungry Time Warner than Portfolio's equally attentive servicing of NBC Universal oligarch, Jeff Zucker? Interviewed at his ballroom-sized corner office at 30 Rock, the reporter at first can't resist infantilizing his subject: "Zucker has an appealing, ruddy tint that lends him a cherubic appearance," reads one willies-inducing passage. "When he sits back, his feet actually lift off from the floor a bit, like a boy taking a turn on someone else’s throne." (We'll assume the part that read, "He then soils his diaper, a mess quickly attended to by the youngest and prettiest of his three assistants..." was edited for space.)But let not his gnome-like stature fool you: Zucker's quick rise to supreme power at the G.E.-held media conglomerate was no upwards-failing accident. This former "captain of his high-school tennis team" applies the same ruthless brutality of his deadly slices and backhands to the business of hacking away the fat hindering a rapidly evolving medium:

Top five answers on the board, people! It's been a few months since we last asked you to take a short survey that will help us learn a little bit more about you, the loyal Defamer reader. Completing our survey — which should take 10 minutes tops — is a little bit like completing a profile for Match.com, only instead of ending up on a date with someone considerably less attractive than their online profile suggests, you'll wind up in the running to win a $300 Gift Certificate from Visa. That sure sounds like a win/win for all parties involved! Of course, standard rules apply (don't they always?). So, if you don't want us to get all Richard Dawson on your asses, won't you please take our painless little survey? Kisses!

Talk about your viral websites: in an apparent bid to piggyback off the infamous menage a trois in the upcoming Scarlett Johansson film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, scarlettjohansson.com is offering two lucky readers to join the starlet in what is being advertised as a "smoking-hot threesome." While the site's heavy reliance on capital letters and free downloads from Font Freak leads us to believe that it's operating without Johansson's official consent, we'll excerpt its breathless offer and let you be the judge:

Add another "maybe" to our speculation about Joel Silver's future at Warner Bros.: Reports today indicate that the slumping superproducer is shopping around Guy Ritchie's Rocknrolla, a Dark Castle project scheduled for release by WB in October. Maybe. Now Lionsgate and Sony are supposedly in talks to pick up the action/crime thriller lest Warners overextend itself this fall with titles inherited from New Line (Pride and Glory), Picturehouse (The Women) and Warner Independent (Slumdog Millionaire, Towelhead). We think this falls into the "content is king" model evinced recently by Alan Horn, Barry Meyer and the higher-ups at Time Warner — as in, "This content is kind of terrible... Do we really have to release this?" At least that's the impression Horn apparently left with LAT BFF Patrick Goldstein:

Cybill Shepherd pleasantly greeted the snappers outside of LAX on Tuesday afternoon. The Moonlighting star told them that they sure knew how to make a girl feel welcomed as she pulled up to airport. The snappers followed Shepherd all the way to the ticket counter, but much to Shepherd's dismay, the lens men stopped once Shepherd hit the escalator. Shepherd asked if they wanted to get some frames of her taking her shoes off and you know, acting like a regular person. They collectively shrugged their shoulders and said that they've got enough photos of people without their shoes on.

· Today on Feeling Zoila, Jeff Lewis's frittata-serving lifemate reveals what she's learned from her OCD-afflicted boss. We think we can now safely say we know where she got that bad habit of standing on the front lawn in denim short-shorts and shaking her dumps for passing motorists. [Flipping Out] · "I know I've complained about your split-ends before, but hair, thank you for being the only thing on this planet preventing me from totally losing it right now!!!" [Mollygood] · Shia's pinkie is still attached and doing well, said co-star Isabel Lucas, which was more than she could say for Adrian Grenier. [Just Jared, People] · Beefcake week continues here at Defamer with some 19-year-old, shirtless Seacrest. [TMZ] · For the love of God, do not click here. (You have been warned. Don't go complaining that you shouldn't have done it.) [Celebslam] · Inky, Pinky, Sprinkly, and Yum. [shinyshiny.tv]

It wasn't so long ago that Jonathan Demme was considered one of Hollywood's preeminent directors. Actually, scratch that — after checking out his IMDB profile, we now realize that the last time he made a film that had any sort of cultural impact (or, for that matter, even approached the state of being "watchable") was 1993's landmark Academy Award winner Philadelphia. Over the last fifteen years, his resume includes such stinkers as Beloved, The Truth About Charlie and The Manchurian Candidate (in the spirit of fairness, the documentary The Agronomist was pretty decent). Which is why after seeing Demme sputter out with a couple of ill-fated remakes, we were mildly excited for his return to directing an original script, the Anne Hathaway vehicle Rachel Getting Married. Emphasis on the word "were."

We thought all discussion of The Clone Wars ended yesterday with the discovery that if Harry Knowles hates it — enough even for George Lucas Warner Bros. to swoop in and kill his embargo-shattering review — it must be some kind of radioactively awful. But new revelations have surfaced this afternoon about Ziro the Hutt, the fringe character whom Knowles described as sounding like "a racist take on a Black New Orleans Crack-Dealing Whore." Not quite, Harry — not even close, in fact, according to an interview published today at MTV Movies:

Outfoxed: Though ticket prices continue to rise and box office records are broken nearly every week, this will be 20th Century Fox's first summer without a $100 million hit since (yikes) 1997. How could anyone have predicted such dire earnings from a blockbuster slate that boasted Space Chimps, an X-Files sequel made a decade too late, and twin bombs from Eddie Murphy and M. Night Shyamalan? As the LAT's Patrick Goldstein notes, Fox toppers Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos have held their position for nine years — will this be the year one (or both) gets the axe? If so, we hear there's a certain toothy mogul who might be looking for work... [LAT]

With our daily "MGM Tower Under Attack" report in the books, "retard" outrage in the streets and everything thankfully quiet on our Billy Bob Thornton Co-Star CurseWatch, the only real news we have left to pass along today actually speaks for itself: "The Best Breast List: wowOwow’s Peek Down Dazzling 40+ Décolletage." Indeed, the saucy ladies of the women's Web site wowOwow — including Liz Smith, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lily Tomlin among others — gathered their 10 favorite middle-age busts in no particular order for discussion, observation and, if you dare, debate. We don't exactly know the criteria (bikini-rocking couldn't have hurt Helen Mirren), but see if you can lift and separate them in an excerpt after the jump.

Though producers for the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace eventually settled on Jack White and Alicia Keys to record the series' first duet, there is one wronged woman who will not go away quietly, and her name is Amy Winehouse. The crack-smoking chanteuse was the first singer approached for the project, and though producers claimed that recording sessions yielded nothing, Winehouse begs to differ — in fact, she told New! that she plans to put her own Bond theme out when the film premieres: