At first, we assumed this cluster of discarded standees in the Fox hallways (captured by The WOW Report boys while there on a pitch) offered the inadvertently hilarious juxtaposition of Ryan Seacrest's upper body with Paris Hiton's stilletoed gams, instantly rendering the host of their most valuable franchise into a streetwalking trannitute (and turning the cellphone in his hand into some sort of state-of-the-art communications dildo). It was only upon further contemplation that we realized that this was no random pile headed to the recycling bin, but Fox reality department's mix n' match technique of devising new hit series. But the sad "reality" of reality TV development is that a sure thing like The Seacrest Life may never even see the light of day, thus depriving audiences of the classic pilot episode in which Ryan gets pushed out of a speeding car on Santa Monica Blvd. by an unsuspecting John who discovers his "hidden microphone."

· Lionsgate will produce a remake of evil-cornea-transplant thriller The Eye, with Jessica Alba in talks to star based solely on the studio's appreciation of her acting ability. [Variety]
· The now startlingly chubby Raven-Symone (what happened?) will star in Disney's remake of Adventures in Babysitting, which in a departure from the original will center on a psychotic babysitter's attempt to devour the children in her temporary care. We never thought we'd see that day where we'd do two cheap "Raven-Symone is fat" jokes in the same post, but there you have it. [THR]
· Comedy Central plans to finally re-air South Park's Emmy-nominated, Tom-Cruise-baiting "Trapped in the Closet" episode on July 19th, which still gives the network plenty of time to pull the show again and reap an extra round of publicity by caving to pressure from Cruise and/or Scientology. [Variety]
· Fox crushes all competition with the baseball's All-Star Game. [THR]
· MTV and Cingular get together to ensure that your cellphone can receive a constant stream of Viacom product. OMG! It's like having the entire cast of Laguna Beach in your pocket! LOL! [Variety]

Disney has opted for a novel way to celebrate the happy occasion of Pirates of the Caribbean 2's unprecedented opening weekend gross: by cutting down production and shitcanning a large chunk of its personnel. Variety heralds the carnage to come:

Tom Cruise's unwillingness to build a replica of an upscale shopping street in his Telluride compound has come back to haunt him, as caffeine-addicted incubator-unit Katie Holmes was beset by an Us Weekly reporter during her contractually mandated, bi-monthly Starbucks run, then promptly violated Team Cruise's total embargo on releasing any information about the couple's suspiciously unseen, possibly imaginary child. Reports Us:

Kate Bosworth and Keira Knightley both became stars playing the leads in films about healthy, headstrong female athletes, which only heightens the irony of what they've become: flesh-covered sticks swimming in size zero designerwear, with barely enough energy to raise their now giant-seeming heads to answer the endless barrage of press junket questions launched at them. As they currently star in the two biggest youth-oriented event movies of the summer, parents of America's impressionable young ladies have taken concerned notice of the trend, fearing that their (mostly obese) children may soon want to start mimicking their skeletal heroines. And as with any media-concocted social panic story, we even get a catchy, new* word by which to identify the phenomenon: "Thinspiration."

It seems that Lindsay Lohan's management team at CAA has succeeded in mating her off-screen image with her movie career, as paparazzi agency Splash News has snapped set photos from Georgia Rule (we think, though the period costumes and late 70s vintage O-face of her co-star could indicate Mark David Chapman biopic Chapter 27), capturing a scene in which Lohan simulates a sexual act usually reserved for the darkened corners of Disneyland's Sailing Ship Columbia at 2 a.m. They grow up so fast on-screen, don't they?

Page Six has already beaten us to the Ron Burgundy joke in today's item about a CNBC anchor who mistakenly (and hilariously!) reported that Pirates of the Caribbean 2 shattered™ the box office record of fictional blockbuster Aquaman. Say the Sixies:

· Good news for actors looking to beef up the "skills" section of their resumes: The Shit Film proves, once again, that LA's number one natural resource is people willing to do just about anything in front of a camera.

· A Photoshop contest seeking the "darker side" of popular children's characters unearthed Malibu Anna, who requires about as much food as her real-life counterparts.

· Speaking of Anna's real-life counterparts, Variety is reporting that The Simple Life will be coming back for a fifth season.

· Katie Holmes' father is feeling your pain right about now, Grandpa Jon.

· The original Supernova (you remember Supernova, don't you? "Purple Pony?" "King Ding Dong?") takes Mark Burnett to court for stealing their lame band name.

It hasn't just been a record-shattering week for movie folks: The Big Four networks have been setting benchmarks themselves recently, though don't expect Variety to fall open to a color, gatefold ad proudly touting the fact that they have just reached the smallest audience in TV history:

An obscure bit of local historical color from Rotten.com:

· Music round-up: Band Name of the Month nominee The Fuxedos at the Echo; Ozomatli/Jurassic 5's Cut Chemist at Amoeba; Soul Asylum at the Troubadour (desire for audience intimacy or consequence of faded popularity: you make the call).
· Dude: Free Slurpees. Not exactly an event listing, but we bet some of you can make a night out of it. [via lafreebie]
· Oliver Stone steps out of his comfort zone to screen paranoid political thriller Z at the Skirball, with a Q&A moderated by film critic Leonard Maltin afterwards. [via LAist]

Because we know that New Line will totally call us in the morning if we just put out a little bit (OK, third base at most, and only if they pay for dinner), we are happy to provide this small amount of free advertising to their late summer entertainment-related product, Snakes on a Plane, by posting this 100 percent NON-EXCLUSIVE music video for the movie's official theme song. We must, however, offer this tiny critique: While the song is catchy enough and the idea of the band smuggling its deadly reptilian payload through security by distracting the X-ray tech with cleavage is cute, um....there are no motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane. This seems to us like an unacceptable betrayal of trust, given that the whole point of the movie* is to see Samuel L. Jackson draped in albino pythons while struggling to close overhead bins bursting with improperly stowed cobras. If you're not going to show scenes from the movie, give us the band playing a concert in an economy cabin overrun by snakes, or watching in horror as their guitars/drumsticks/the bassist suddenly transmogrify into giant serpents. Don't get cute with the concept now, New Line. You've come too far for that. We all have.

It's time to share your collective blind item wisdom with the world. But before going on to your guesses, get drunk and call One Overly Caring Blind Vice, hoping to rekindle your long-dead romance:

• X-Men-3:The Last Standing Ovation Trailer [YouTube]

[Note: UPDATE follows after the jump. Please read the entire post before e-mailing in helpful corrections.] A couple of amateur document-authentic specialists (read: conspiracy-minded readers with web browsers and free time) found something potentially interesting in the Suri Cruise birth certificate that TMZ.com published yesterday, which had already set our tinfoil helmets vibrating because of the previously noted irregularities regarding its late filing, signing by a Cruise "friend," and certification by someone who apparently hadn't even seen the alleged baby. A sample of our freelance research team's efforts:

Impressive CGI sequences and box office shattering numbers aside, we at Defamer realize some of this summer's major releases may leave audiences feeling a little underserved. All the more credit, then, to an anonymous Craigslist patron who seeks to enhance his Pirates of the Caribbean viewing experience, but doesn't need expensive bells and whistles like 3-D IMAX sequences to do so:

· Increasingly cost-conscious studios are reexamining what kind of financial return they're getting on their expensive producing deals. So tight-fistedly cautious is the current climate that Paramount is reportedly dragging its feet on renewing its deal with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner, perhaps thinking they can coax a more favorable dollars-to-publicity-disaster ratio from other producers. [Variety]
· Heavy-handed, Oscar-winning fauxteur Paul Haggis wants to break Vince Vaughn free of his eight-figures-per-picture comedy jail and smuggle him back to his Return to Paradise day by casting him in his Serious Adaptation of Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies. [THR]
· This just in: Italians love to watch World Cup soccer! [Variety]
· Matt Leinart's defection to CAA is representative of Hollywood agencies' new thirst for pure, healthy athlete blood. [THR]
· Something called Psych earns something else called USA Network "the highest-rated debut episode of a basic-cable series so far this year." Oh, look at us pretend to never have heard of a basic cable network! [Variety]

We're not even going to pretend we've been keeping up with The Real World, having lost touch with the grandaddy of all drunken, jacuzzi-based documentary social experiments somewhere around New Orleans. Apparently, the current season is set in Key West, and cast member Paula Meronek (according to official materials, she's "a corporate slave by day, but makes up for it by partying relentlessly at night," and "still connected to her abusive ex-boyfriend." Fun!) has been arrested for allegedly having "bit her boyfriend several times when he refused to let her into their home early Sunday morning." The optimist in us can't help but feel that Meronek's cannibalistic crime suggests a baby step towards overcoming her anorexia, while Bunim/Murray productions must be at least partially thrilled to know that their aging, flagship series still carries enough weight to get the psychotic antics of their crazy bitch stars coverage on the national stage.

[Ed.note—Normally we wouldn't run the Blind Item Guessing Game a day after Ted C. published his item, but it's been too long since we've done one, we are powerless before your cries to hit this installment, and, most crucially, it's a slow Tuesday. Enjoy.] Wherein we invite our readers to wander naked and unashamed through the paradaisical blind item garden lovingly tended by humpy, infinitely benevolent E! gossip-Creator Ted Casablanca and hazard an inevitably incorrect guess as to the identity of this week's secret celebrity subject. This week, Ted turns to two of his favorite recurring characters, Morgan Mayhem and a huge pile of blow. Dip yourself in honey and invite the sweet stings of One Overly Caring Blind Vice:

An amused operative from within the Disney corporate family shared with us this company-wide e-mail in which Head Mouse in Charge Bob Iger pats his underlings on their collective back for Pirates of the Caribbean 2's record-shattering™ performance. But in his exuberance to reach out and personally touch the inboxes of his cast members, Iger may have neglected proofreading his missive, tragically misspelling the name of one of his stars and redundantly referring to the Pirates franchise as "something that will be enjoyed by generations of people for generations." Ever the perfectionist, Iger eventually corrected his mistake. Says our operative: "Two hours later he sent out the exact same memo with the spelling corrected. No mention that he had gotten it wrong the first time. At Disney, we don't acknowledge mistakes." An excerpt from the memo [boldface ours]: