It seems that when we briefly mused about a scenario in which curiously hacky hired-gun Brett Ratner might be called upon to take over The Hobbit franchise by a panicked New Line, we regrettably attached the director to the wrong combination of pants-soiling studio and destabilized hairy-protagonist project. Following Mark Romanek's recently announced departure from The Wolf Man, a desperate Universal, perhaps seeking a collaborator with whom "creative differences" will never be a problem as long as a large enough paycheck is signed, will ask Ratner to step in and render his predecessor's original vision unrecognizable, according to Ain't It Cool News:

Tonight, CBS will air Bob Barker: A Celebration of 50 Years on Television, a tribute that will finally send the The Price Is Right legend into the gameshow host afterlife, where he will enjoy the attentions of 72 Barker's Beauties in an idyllic environment free of troubling sexual harassment lawsuits as his just reward for 35 years of dedicated service. While the network has yet to name Barker's successor, it seems that Rosie O'Donnell is renewing her public campaign for the job, undeterred by reports that the retiring host would sooner see an entire shelter full of abandoned pets have their neutering magically reversed than allow the skinny mic to be passed to O'Donnell. She's taken out a full-page suck-up ad in the trades today (above) inviting Barker to her Miami compound, where the two can enjoy a lazy day of Plinko (she's got her own full-size board), inverted yoga-swinging, and some casual conversation about her candidacy.