Steve Martin lures his high-powered pals to his house with promises of a "party," then proceeds to blow his guests' minds by marrying his much-younger girlfriend. Rumor has it that old friend Tom Hanks had to be revived with smelling salts after fainting dead away from the unexpected shock. [AP]

· Johnny Depp continues in his quest to wash the bitter, piratey taste of commerce out of his mouth, signing on for an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel The Rum Diary. [Variety]
· Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day also sees the announcement of a new two-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV, for whom he produces Prison Break and the upcoming Women's Murder Club, establishing that there is no visual medium safe from his boundless ambition. [THR]
· The Simpsons Movie takes in $96 million at the foreign box office, setting a number of single-day and opening weekend records and crushing competition like Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. [Variety]
· Perhaps because nearly every Simpsons fan in America was watching the World's Favorite Dysfunctional Family at the multiplex, a repeat of the TV show finished behind CBS's Big Brother in the Sunday night ratings race. [THR]
· All hail your new global leader: Variety editor-at-large Elizbaeth Guider jumps to THR as editor, where she'll be "the global leader responsible for the editorial vision and strategic direction of The Hollywood Reporter's daily and weekly editions, digital content offerings and industry-leading executive conferences while overseeing its staff of editors and reporters worldwide." [THR]

First Us Weekly deemed Paris Hilton too annoying for its tender pages, and then today E! came to its senses and decided that bratty rich girls tainting the lives of innocents no longer sounded like good TV. Now, the jailbird heiress's grandfather is delivering a swift boot to her assets: Barron Hilton has allegedly yanked Paris's $60 million inheritance because, while he could tolerate a sex tape and the noxious aural assault that was her album, a prison stint was more than he could handle over his morning Ensure:

Upon picking up their copies of Variety this morning and seeing the above image, subscribers to the trade publication would discover that today is Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day, a joyous celebration of the ten-figure gross accumulated by the preternaturally hacky director/local bon vivant's seven feature films, an unassailable record of success that ensures that the still-creatively-evolving 38-year-old will have the opportunity to helm lucrative Rush Hour sequels well into the next decade.

As is his wont, Defamer associate editor Seth gave me very little notice of the vacation he was embarking on beginning today, casually calling me up last night with the flimsy excuse that he'd accepted a week-long gig punching up the script for Feed The Bears II: The Bears Are Still Hungry!, a sequel to the ursine-glutton fetish classic rushed into production following the original film's unexpected exposure on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Whatever he's actually doing for the next seven days, I trust he will return refreshed next Monday, with plenty of amusing, completely fabricated stories about how the talent kept botching his favorite scene, in which two of his burly stars gnaw on opposite ends of a succulent watermelon.

With legendary director Ingmar Bergman, talk show host Tom Snyder, and La Cage aux Folles actor Michel Serrault all passing this weekend, hopefully the Show Business Reaper's "Rule of Three" quota has been met, freeing us from worrying about who his next victim might be for at least the next few days. A round-up of obituaries for the recently deceased trio:

Monday morning! Nope, even saying it with forced enthusiasm doesn't make it seem any less painful. Take your mind off the bleakness with the weekend box office numbers:

· The Last Days of Lindsay Lohan: Caught coke-panted. The Beaker connection. Putting things together. A poetry response. FuckageWatch: Parts 1 and 2. A case of mistaken coke-pants identity. The I Know Who Killed Me screening report. Inching closer to an answer. Google-Mapping the chase. The Denali Three, Hollywood's hottest hostage trio, are considering their legal options.
· Britney Spears is an enemy of fashion.
·Steve McPherson wishes NBC rock-star Ben Silverman would "be a man," and his pet sitcomfomercial's producers defend Cavemen.
· Nicole Richie is living a nightmare, and we're finding it hard to care.
· TV Paula Abdul and real Paula Abdul can't seem to agree on whether or not she was fired.
· Tom Cruise really knows how to throw a great welcome to the neighborhood party.
· Paramount's big, happy family.
· Drew Carey accepts a job at The Price is Right, and is visited that night by a terrifying lesbian specter.
· Ben Affleck plays a convincing ear of corn.
· And introducing Merry Miller as Completely Incompetent Junket Reporter.
· Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, crash it, change it, CAA it.
· Kindly Feed the Bears.

In the interest of bringing a small amount of closure to the Lohan-related events we've so exhaustively covered this week, we note the unsurprisingly low Tomatometer score for her cinematic sideshow I Know Who Killed Me, which, in fairness, reflects the opinions of only a small group of critics due to the studio's understandable decision (really, hasn't everyone suffered enough?) not to pre-screen it for the media. But to judge from this first wave of nearly unanimous negative reviews, not even the prospect of sharing an inappropriate laugh in a theater sparsely populated by fellow trainwreck fans is worth the price of a ticket.

Friday
· Music round-up: Maximo Park at the El Rey, Eisley at the Silent Movie Theater, The Melvins at the Troubadour.
· The UCB Theatre hosts Harmon Leon: Reality TV Infiltrator!, in which the comedian shares some of his career highlights crashing reality TV sets, and starring in O.J. Simpson's doomed contribution to the hidden-camera genre, Juice'd.

In a development that was about as hard to see coming as an SUV swerving down a Santa Monica street following an all-night, rehab-erasing bender, the trio of hostages—who will heretofore be known as the Denali Three—claiming to have been in the vehicle with Lindsay Lohan during the high-speed chase that resulted in her DUI arrest are now threatening to sue the actress over the psychologically scarring experience. At a press conference this afternoon, the lawyer who helped the victims reinterpret their trauma as actionable offenses announced the grounds for a potential suit. Reports Access Hollywood:

We thought we'd never see a better personalized plate than the one on the Fox lot's "7 MPG" Hummer, but we were wrong, So very wrong. [Losanjelous]

While it still has a way to go before it can equal the aesthetic crime against humanity represented by Los Angeles's preeminent residential eyesore, music producer/reality TV nutjob Norwood Young's House of Davids, up-and-coming architectural abomination ALEXANDER, RULER OF THE WORLD is quickly making a name for itself in the exciting world of "Did you fucking see that place?" landmarks.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you spotted bodybuilder prop comic Carrot Top discretely awaiting the 704 rapid line.

A little earlier, upon hearing the news that Nicole Richie had been sentenced to four days in prison for her DUI arrest, we remarked that we felt nothing, so spent are we by our deep investment in the spectacular fuck-ups of her more glamorous peers.

Freaky Friday/Mean Girls director Mark Waters on the prospect of working with Lindsay Lohan again: "I'm certainly not going to be seeking her out until she gets her personal life in order. On a business level, most companies aren't going to want to take the chance making a movie with someone who is unreliable." [People]

Our visits to BravoTV.com are usually spent reading about the latest in over-the-counter European pharmaceutical trends from executive raconteur and confidante to the stars, Andy Cohen. Today, however, Andy redirected us to a bold new initiative undertaken by the cable network's online presence: There, nestled between a Padma Lakshmi post about what foods go best with dumping your fatwa'd spouse, and a terrifying slideshow tour of Paula Abdul's subconscious, is the Bravo Interns' Blog. Finally, the hard-working, fresh-faced kids who spend their summers thanklessly tracking down Xanadu: On Broadway house seats for a sock-eschewing overlord have a voice. Let's check in with intern Rich, who is still grappling with the sometimes awkward mechanics of workplace culture:

It's time again to celebrate the contributions to the common good made by this week's sponsors, any of whom we'd happily let fumble with the zipper on our most flattering pair of coke-bearing trousers. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and earn a similar, but somewhat differently worded, expression of our ardor, see this page, see this page.

· Johnny Depp may get to fulfill his childhood fantasy of becoming the "vampire patriarch" of the 60s bloodsucker soap opera Dark Shadows, as he's developing a feature based on the series for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Hollywood tries to make the filthy little whores of YouTube jealous by openly flirting with DailyMotion, the French video sharing site that's now setting up shop here and starting to cut deals with content producers. [THR]
· Fred Claus star Vince Vaughn continues to work the holiday-themed direction of his recent career, signing on alongside Reese Witherspoon for New Line's comedy Four Christmases, the story of a couple who tries to visit all four of their divorced parents on Christmas day. Yuletide hilarity to ensue. [Variety]
· Rob Estes joins the cast of the upcoming ABC drama Women's Murder Club, giving the show the shot of Melrose Place credibility it so desperately needed. [THR]
· And in this round-up's last bit of casting news, Susan Sarandon has joined Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones adaptation, which promises to be the most visually arresting story of a raped and murdered teenager ever made. [Variety]