· Black Wednesday becomes Blacker Tuesday: 109 of the 129 employees in Paramount's domestic distribution department were fired to make room for a leaner, meaner team mostly comprised of DreamWorks staff. Somewhere on the Melrose lot, Emperor Grey shrugs off the executions by imagining all the money Steven Spielberg might one day make for him. [Variety]
· ESPN/ABC Sports trades sportscaster Al Michaels to NBC for an animated, lucky rabbit. Seriously. [THR]
· Producer Bob Yari loses an appeal to the Academy for a producer credit on Crash, which will keep him off the podium should our worst nightmares be realized and the movie win Best Picture. [Variety]
· In perhaps today's most inspiring trade paper tale of redemption, the guys who wrote Elektra have overcome that tragedy to continue to work in Hollywood. [Variety]
· Jennifer Beals joins the cast of The Grudge 2, leading to much rejoicing at Defamer HQ. We loves us some Beals. [THR]
· Holy fucking shit: Someone actually took the $100K and got the Pink Panther surgery. [Variety]

The coming days at Paramount are probably going to get a little weird, as staffers from DreamWorks moving onto the lot settle into office chairs still warm from their previous owner's posteriors and suffer the withering glares of the lunch buddies left behind. But in any massive corporate reorganization there are bound to be some employees who fall through the cracks, and an as-yet unshuffled operative asks us the big, post-pinkslip existential question: If no one tells me I'm fired, do I have to leave?

· Official word out of Paramount: The DreamWorks deal is complete, Black Wednesday layoffs included 50 people from DreamWorks and 25 from Paramount, and the expected personnel toll is 240, 120 from each side. Have a happy Thursday! [Variety]
· Japanese conglomerate Matsushita (owner of Panasonic) bails out of its ownership of Universal, wishing to get back to the core business of producing the increasingly tiny, ultra-portable electronics that make pirating Hollywood's intellectual property such a breeze. [THR]
· The "experimental" Weinstein Co. horror Dream Team project Grind, featuring a zombie story by Robert Rodriguez and a slasher flick by Quentin Tarantino, is close to beginning production. Tarantino seems preoccupied with making a trailer for the fake exploitation movie Cowgirls in Sweden (which will run in the intermission between the two director's tales), and is planning a special sex-tour through Scandinavia to get the details right. [Variety]
· Time to gape at the Idol numbers: About 30 million people tuned in to watch that pricky waiter brag about how much the ladies love him, then get voted through to Hollywood. [THR]
· Universal-based producers Scott Stuber and Mary Parent buy the rights to the memoir Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman with an eye towards turning it into a fictionalized look at the pharmaceutical industry calle, we hope, Boner Pill: The Movie. [Variety]

Moments ago, Paramount Head Executioner Brad Grey addressed his rapidly depleting workforce to explain some of the executive moves that were made on this Black Wednesday, following the official closing of the DreamWorks acquisition. An excerpt from the e-mail:

Operatives on the Paramount lot have told us that the long-anticipated layoffs resulting from Brad Grey's early Christmas gift to himself, the DreamWorks acquisition, have finally begun. Early reports have Paramount's development and marketing departments getting swept away in favor of the DW staff, but from what we've heard, workers across the lot are so nervous about the cuts that Grey might as well be wandering around in a Grim Reaper outfit, randomly tapping the soon-to-be pinkslipped on the shoulder and yelling "Boo!" Yesterday's rumors were that 70-100 people might be going, but today's whispered number is 170. Developing...

A reader driving up Gower Street this afternoon snapped these pics (he even apologized for the dirty windows) of a truck carrying what he believes to be giant Oscar statues from storage on the Paramount lot to some destination elsewhere in Hollywood. We hope that he's correct about the statues, as one of our operatives was nervous that some of the inevitable layoffs from the DreamWorks acquisition might be beginning very soon, and we can't bear to think that Brad Grey quietly ordered some redundant employees bronzed, covered in plastic, and shipped out on the flatbeds of pick-up trucks.

· Variety does its best to sift through the continuing fallout from Paramount's DreamWorks acquisition. Paramount insiders deny that Brad Grey #2 Gail Berman's job is already at stake (despite the loud whisper of the moment that she might be axed and replaced by DW producer Walter Parkes, but shhhh, that's just a nasty rumor). And as for the problem of redundancy in jobs across DreamWorks and Paramount, "department heads from both studios were required to turn over names of employees in their division. The lists are being combed over to see which employee is a stronger candidate, the current Paramount employee or the DreamWorks staffer." After five minutes of dramatic head-scratching and thoughtful harumphing, the Paramount list will be run through a shredder and offices will be cleared to make way for the DW staffers. It's nonstop fun and excitement on the Melrose lot! [Variety]
· NBC will air a record 416 hours of Winter Olympics coverage across its many networks, meaning that you, the incredibly bored viewer, might not miss a single minute of people in spandex sliding down ice chutes in a dizzying variety of positions. [THR]
· Reclusive move star Julia Roberts considers returning to her long abandoned career to star opposite Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War, possibly for her Closer director Mike Nichols. If she's going to hand the twins over to a nanny to go back to work, she's not gonna fuck around. [Variety]
· With just weeks until shooting, the producers of the new, Daniel Craig-starring Bond remake Casino Royale are sleeping with actresses as fast as they can to find a new Bond Girl. [Variety]
· FX has already purchased the cable rights to 2006 summer blockbuster-to-be Superman Returns for a reported $17-25 million. guaranteeing the network first crack at cramming the Bulge of Steel onto the small screen. [Variety]

· NBC president Kevin Reilly rearranges some deck chairs on his primetime Titanic, with exec VP of development Ghen Maynard and senior VP of comedy Cheryl Dolins being de-Peacocked. Reilly, it seems, is not quite ready to fire himself. Give it time. [Variety]
· Fox gives a cast-contingent order to latest ——-ing With the Stars reality idea, Simon Cowell's Duets, wherein a "star" performs a song with a professional singer in front of a panel of judges. Pending results for the network's Skating With Celebrities, an ice-skating component may be added to maximize cynicism. [THR]
· Warner Bros. rescues the Maurice Sendak-approved Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are from Universal's turnaround. Huzzah! (Really.) [Variety]
· You can stop holding your breath now. The WB has netted its Aquaman! [THR]
· Paramount is still working on deal to sell the DreamWorks library to help defray the cost of their holiday impulse studio buy, is in talks to get George Sorosto pony up about a billion or so dollars for the rights. [Variety]

· The Producers Guild goes indie/specialty with its best film awards nominations, rounding up Brokeback, Capote, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Walk the Line. Did any of them actually see Crash? [Variety]
· And here come the Writers Guild nominations for best original screenplay: Cinderella Man, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. We think our feelings about one of these nominees are clear by now, so we'll avoid beating that dead hor...oh, fuck it. Crash? Really now? [THR]
· Ted Koppel signs a Seacrestian (yeah, we went there) multi-year deal to produce documentaries and "town meetings" for The Discovery Channel, leaving jilted lover HBO to wistfully smell the helmet-shaped indentation on the pillow from their last romantic rendezvous. [Variety]
· ABC wins the Tuesday night ratings war with its coverage of the Orange Bowl, or as Variety likes to call it, the Fiesta Bowl. [THR, Variety]
· Warner Bros. and Fox celebrate winning 2005's box office, while DreamWorks and Sony cross their fingers for a less disastrous '06. [Variety]

Shockwaves are still radiating from yesterday's announcement that veteran distribution president Wayne Lewellen had been fired from his post of 33 years by turning-out-to-be-not-so-nice New New Paramount head Brad Grey, a man who enjoys firing people in the same way others might enjoy, say, golf. Page Six has further details:

· More perfectly timed holiday layoff fun: MTV Networks let go close to 100 employees, a move the suddenly scary-looking Tom Freston might have been hinting at when he told THR yesterday, "We're looking very closely at a much leaner corporate overhead." Merry Christmas, pinkslipped "overhead"! [THR]
· Paramount signs a term sheet to sell the DreamWorks library to a number of private equity firms for somewhere between $900 and $950 million. We will not even attempt to sex up this move. [Variety]
· Time Warner cable will roll out "Family Choice Tier" cable package of "smut-free" programming. You know, the kind of smut that you find on Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network, which are not a part of the package. [THR]
· After the disappointing Wednesday numbers for King Kong, execs are clinging to the hope that word of mouth, school vacations, and the South thawing will lure fans of the little monkey out of hiding. [Variety]
· Sometime actor Bruce Willis will take some time off from his promising vigilante-financier career to star in Morgan's Summit, playing a professionally nice guy who goes crazy for vengeance once a brutal crime changes his life. [Variety]

· What did Paramount get in the DreamWorks deal? Half of anything Steven Spielberg does (even if he fools around with other studios), distribution rights for DreamWorks Animation films, and in a less-reported concession, Brad Grey gets to pat Jeffrey Katzenberg on the head and call him Lil' Buddy any time he visits the lot. Get it? Because he's short and adorable! [Variety]
· Jude Law joins Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jack Black in Something's Gotta Give writer Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Holiday, a project whose reportedly torturously prolonged casting process finally yielded exactly the right lovable, nanny-zapping rogue for the role. [THR]
· The forthcoming book Striking Back will simultaneously try to capitalize on the interest in the events depicted in Munich while disputing the version of events reported in Vengeance, the movie's source material. [Variety]
· Lake Bell is in negotiations to play Colin Farrell's wife in New Line cop drama Pride and Glory, assuming the actor doesn't chew through his restraints in rehab and escape before the conclusion of his treatment. [THR]
· Sandy Grushow, who greenlit 24 while at Fox and worked on marketing Die Hard, will produce the real-time drama pilot Crisis for Fox through his Phase Two company. We'll give you three guesses about which two highly successful projects Crisis is compared to. [Variety]

· The trades react to the sad news that Richard Pryor died of a heart attack on Saturday. Var calls him "groundbreaking," and "talented and tormented," while THR reminds us that Pryor nabbed $4 million for the awful Superman 3. [Variety, THR]
· Paramount will try to defray the cost of Friday's impulse-buy (when Brad Grey sees something he likes in a store window, money is no object!) of DreamWorks by flipping the studio's 59 title live-action library to a third party for $1 billion. [Variety]
· The WB benefits from Friday's bombshell Paramount/DreamWorks announcement, pink-slipping about 20 network workers while everyone was worrying about how much richer Steven Spielberg and David Geffen were about to get. [THR]
· Brokeback Mountain and Memoirs of a Geisha set limited release box office record. The gay cowboys wrangled $108,910 per theater, while the controversially Chinese geishas did $84,194 per. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, British Import Edition, Part XXIV: Fox greenlights a pilot for The Worst Week of My Life, based on a BBC series about a "hellacious" week (read: wackiness ensues!) before a couple's wedding. [THR]

A crucial step in any blockbuster studio move is the self-congratulatory memo to one's underlings following the public deal announcement. New New Paramount™ employees arrived to find this companywide e-mail from DreamWorks-swallowing leader Brad Grey in their inboxes this morning, which, quite frankly, lacked the "Holy fucking shit, I just stole Steven Spielberg from Universal! General Electric is Viacom's bitch!" panache that we were hoping for.

Well, now it looks like Paramount wasn't just fucking around when it prepared its bid for DreamWorks. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Steven Spielberg is jilting Universal and dashing into Brad Grey's outstretched arms:

· Paramount prepares a bid for DreamWorks SKG, obviously fulfilling a secret deal with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to drive up their studio's price for inevitable purchaser Universal. For his cooperation, Brad Grey will receive a truckload of stuffed E.T. dolls and unlimited weekend stays at Geffen's Malibu compound—including optional day-long shiatsu massage by the strongest-handed masseuse the Gay Mafia has to offer. [THR/Reuters]
· It's like First & 10 meets Unscripted, but the actors are taller: George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section Eight sets up an unscripted comedy series about the NBA at HBO. [Variety]
· Spelling Television lets go of almost all of its staff, prejudicially shitcanning about 25 employees. (No word on whether Aaron Spelling's personal office chef escaped the bloodletting.) The company keeps its bigwigs and becomes a mere pod at Paramount TV. [THR]
· Scarlett Johansson continues to Hoover up all available mid-20s female roles, signing on for Christopher Nolan's dueling-magician pic The Prestige. [Variety]
· Jeff Probst will host Survivor for at least 2 more years, including the franchise's most ambitious installment to date, Survivor: Locked in a Janitorial Closet with a Well-Criscoed Richard Hatch. [Variety]

With NBC Universal still circling an acquisition of DreamWorks, today's NY Times wonders (with accompanying Photoshop whimsy, at left—why have we never put Jeffrey Katzenberg in a red hoodie? Well played, NYT.) what exactly the media behemoth will be getting from The 'Works' primary asset, Steven Spielberg, who has a well-established history of spreading his movie-making love all over town. Rob Marshall, director of the Spielberg-produced Memoirs of a Geisha, chooses to celebrate the value of The Maestro's artistry rather than poke the "million-pound gorilla" with a stick:

· Attorneys General in 32 states sign a letter asking studios to add anti-smoking message to DVD and video releases in which smoking is shown, hoping to prevent teens from looking really, really cool in the breezeway between Geography and Home Ec. [Variety]
· Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are in talks to star in an ice skating comedy Blades of Glory for DreamWorks. But THR stresses that while these are serious talks, money and scheduling could deprive the public the joy of Ferrell and Heder playing figure-skating archrivals who are forced to become pairs partners. [Variety]
· Putting up your own money is the new putting up someone else's money: Producer Bobby Newmyer gambles his kids' education fund on financing Mo'Nique vehicle Phat Girlz, but Fox Searchlight picks up distribution rights, assuring that Newmyer will not be murdered by community college educated offspring. [Variety]
· Lost producers will shoot 20 mini-episodes of further show content for mobile phones, allowing viewers the exciting, cutting-edge opportunity to be very confused while squinting at a one-inch screen. [THR]
· Walden Media and New Line try to trick us into thinking Hollywood's not out of ideas by making a modern, 3-D version of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. [Variety]

Radar Online reports on unbearable tensions in the production of Shrek 3, where Cameron Diaz helpfully "suggested" casting songbird boyfriend (and aspiring horrible actor) Justin Timberlake in a major, tricky role. Timberlake promptly repaid his lady's kindness by "ruining the movie," leaving screwed DreamWorks Animation chief pompom tipJeffrey Katzenberg to muse about ways to rectify the situation and save his money-printing franchise:

· Sony pushes All the King's Men to next year's Oscar season, pretending that they'd have to rush the post-production process to make its original December 2005 release date. We always love that excuse. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Stephen King Edition: Warner Bros. will remake 1982's Creepshow. Remember all the cockroaches bursting through the guy's chest? Yeah, that probably won't be nearly as scary now that we're not eight years old.
· Paramount decides that it doesn't want to be DreamWorks' dirty little whore and have its heart broken when the studio eventually goes running back to Universal. [Variety]
· ABC follows up Wednesday's full season Commander in Chief order with a back-nine commitment for Invasion, hoping that the alien-attack drama will continue to lure in viewers (like us) too lazy to change the channel after Lost. [THR]
· Did we somehow miss the press release announcing that Mira Sorvino's officially giving up on her movie career? If starring opposite Stephen Dorff in a miniseries isn't a sign of total capitulation, we don't know what is. [Variety]