· Hillary Clinton's swinging through Hollywood again for a series of fundraisers aimed at raising money for her "Senate re-election campaign," not her inevitable run (fingers crossed for a Clinton-Affleck ticket!) for President in 2008. [Variety]
· Jennifer Connelly is close to joining another feature project, but we don't even care what it is. We'd pay to watch her picking out orthopedic insoles at Rite Aid. Ugh, does that sound like some kind of weird fetish? Because it's totally not. If we wanted to go with the fetish angle, we would've said something about her wearing a bikini and sitting on balloons until they pop. [THR]
· Paramount will go halfsies on the movie adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls with DreamWorks, the " thinly veiled telling of the rise of Diana Ross and the Supremes." The stunt-driver budget alone is expected to be astronomical, so it's good the studios are splitting the financial burden. [Variety]
· Fox picks up full season orders of both The War at Home and Bones, allowing us to continue our unhealthy obsession with Bones' resident squint Emily Deschanel. My, aren't we stalkerish today? OK, we're done now. [THR]
· WGA Report: Honkies with penises still hogging all the writing jobs. [Variety]

· Universal and Fox bring Peter Jackson and wife Fran Walsh on as executive producers of their co-production of Halo, buying some very expensive insurance against the possibility that yet another video game movie will be a disaster. [Variety]
· NBC has picked up the "back nine" episodes for My Name is Earl, greatly increasing the chances that we're going to be subjected to a full season's worth of the network's Satan's-nails-on-a-chalkboard-in-hell promotional campaign. [THR]
· Tony Scott abandons his directing duty on Touchstone/Bruckheimer project Deja Vu due to "logistical and scheduling problems" resulting from the destruction of New Orleans, where the movie was set to shoot. Indeed, those pesky natural disasters can really mess up a production schedule. [Variety]
· Seemingly unaware that the season premiere of Will & Grace has ruined the live-TV stunt for all time, CBS and George Clooney (of "not hosting Brangelina's wedding" fame) will team up for a live TV version of the Academy Award-winning film Network. [THR]
·Roland "The Independence Day After Tomorrow" Emmerich will direct 10,000 B.C. for Columbia pictures, which follows "three stages in the development of primitive man." We can't wait to see what it looks like when caveman society is ravaged by incredible explosions. [Variety]

· NBC greenlights the hourlong comedic drama pilot Heist, to be directed by Doug Liman. The show "is an 'Ocean's Eleven'-style hour about a group of thieves who'll spend the season engineering and executing a grand scheme to simultaneously rob three Rodeo Drive jewelry stores. The twist: They're planning to pull off the job during Oscar week." Liman's pilot has been optimistically budgeted for $175 million. [Variety]
· One day, there will be only two things on your television: A faint distress signal* originating from an inflatable raft after the Great Biblical Flood of 2021, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. [THR]
· Cancellation watch: NBC pulls Inconceivable from this week's schedule, though it's scheduled to return on the 14th. Looks like fertility drama fans can kiss their televised turkey basters goodbye. [Variety]
· With teams from four of the top six cities in the playoffs, FOX and ESPN are ready for big ratings. But should the Yankees and Red Sox not meet in the ALCS, both nets will petition MLB for do-overs until the correct results are achieved. [Variety]
· Filthiest trade-paper headline of the day: "Arnett, Shepard Get Wet at Par" [THR]

[*After 2019, mobile phones will have TV broadcasting capabilities.]

· Sony Pictures Classics unofficially begins the Oscar season by sending out screeners of Junebug five months before the awards ceremony, ensuring that their little film will be forgotten long before any ballots are mailed. Meanwhile, no one seems to want to use Cinea's magic antipiracy DVD players. [Variety]
· NBC wins a bidding war with ABC over Victor Fresco's high-concept sitcom "centering on a twentysomething average Joe whose world is turned upside down when he realizes that his life is being driven by supernatural forces representing good and evil." Sounds considerably more interesting than Life on a Stick, Fresco's last show, which was high-concept only in that it seemed designed to invite immediate cancellation. But a new, lucrative deal always takes the sting out of a quick hook, doesn't it? [THR]
· Renee Zellweger, taking a break from the exhausting work of entering into and quickly annulling marriages with gay-seeming country music stars, is in talks to crinkle up her face in Miss Potter, the story of writer Beatrix Potter. [Variety]
· Fox and NBC get nutty with early series pick-ups, ordering more episodes of Prison Break, American Dad, and The Office. [THR]
· HBO gives a script commitment to the Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson, Larry Charles, and Rick Rubin (Rick Rubin? Wha?) comedy project Bert & Dickie, about an "odd-couple standup comedy team that can't ever manage to come out on top — personally or professionally." Nice to see The Stallion finally conquer the small screen, even if he's just writing. [Variety]
· Kate Winslet is in final negotiations to give Cameron Diaz some much-needed acting lessons. [THR]

Fox might be trying a little too hard to shake up the profoundly stale rich-girls-act-dumb-and-fuck-stuff-up formula that's made Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie a reality TV fixture the last few seasons. The Always Classy Network will soon proudly present The Simple Life: Homewrecking Sluts Edition:

· "Just 10 days away from taking the baton at the Mouse House, a composed and articulate Bob Iger put the emphasis on single-mindedly growing the company's brands." Composed and articulate? What was Variety expecting, that Iger speak in tongues while crapping his pants? Maybe he's saving that for his first day on the job. [Variety]
· The premiere of Lost does "astounding" and "stellar" numbers, while its 8 pm recap/lead-in special causes Martha Stewart's Apprentice to bite the doily. [THR]
· The newly split-up Viacom explains its strategies to Wall Street, with Les Moonves bristling at the idea his division is "slow growth," and calling counterpart Tom Freston "laid back," which will make him "easy to kill, when the time is right." [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Vigilante Judges Edition: Hyde Park Entertainment to redo 1983's The Star Chamber for Fox. Well, at least it isn't for Paramount, home of all things remake. [THR]
· Batman Forever reunion! Jim Carrey is in talks to be homoeroticized by director Joel Schumacher in New Line's "quirky" thriller The Number 23. Should talks progress as expected, Carrey will begin his rubber-nipple fittings immediately. [Variety]

· Variety reminds you about the Emmy moments you may have slept through: Lost takes best drama, Raymond best comedy, Felicity Huffman beats out her fellow Housewives, HBO nabs the most awards overall, and as best comedy writing award winner Mitch Hurwitz would like to remind you, Arrested Development plunges headlong into a third straight season of teetering on the brink of cancellation. [Variety]
· THR analyzes various Emmy wins, including Raymond's statue-hogging last gasp: "How did 'Raymond' pull the comedy series upset? My theory is that voters looked at 'Housewives,' thought to themselves, 'I like this show, but it isn't particularly funny,' and then went with their heart rather than their head..." In other words, ABC's scheme to submit DH as a comedy exploded in its face. [THR]
· More Emmys? Yeah, we got that: Celebs wear ugly flowers to honor the victims of Katrina, but largely avoid going all Kanye West during the show. However, the Bush administration is expected to give serious consideration to Blythe Danner's call to bring our soldiers back from Iraq, but ultimately will double over in laughter and light their cigars with money earmarked for hurricane relief. [Variety]
· Martin Sheen will leave the White House to executive produce a sitcom for NBC through Warner Bros. TV. Brace yourself for the ensuing hilarity: "The show is described as loosely based on a situation that occurred in Sheen's extended family whereby a heterosexual man found himself living with his gay older brother and his brother's lover, all three of which are tasked with taking care of the straight man's ailing mother-in-law. The mother-in-law, however, is a fundamentalist Christian and thus is kept in the dark about the true relationship between the gay couple." [THR]
· Project Greenlight update! First season winner Pete "Stolen Summer" Jones sells his comedy script, Hall Pass, to 20th Century Fox as a possible directing vehicle for the Farrelly brothers. [Variety]

· The new-look, post-Weinstein Miramax looks to roar back to relevancy and make a splash at the Toronto film festival by acquiring...a documentary about girls' basketball. [Variety]
· ESPN will branch out from Bristol with offices in a new Los Angeles entertainment center (think ESPN Zone on steroids—a lot of steroids) being built across from Staples Center. The new facility should help the network's ESPN Hollywood coverage become at least 200 percent more pointless and annoying. [THR]
· House executive producers Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs move from NBC Universal to Fox; Fox's Peter Liguori calls the producers "monster talents" with whom he'd "like to make out with, all day, every day." [Variety]
· On a slow news day, sometimes it's fun to dive down into the deepest recesses of the casting notices and see what kind of bizarre bioluminescent news lives there: Devon Sawa and Matthew Lawrence sign on to star in the sci-fi/horror flick Hunter's Moon. [THR]
· Simon Baker joins Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in Fox 2000's The Devil Wears Prada. We feel somewhat ashamed that we have no idea who Simon Baker is, even after reviewing his IMDb profile. [Variety]

· Steve Carell's agents make sure they book up every free minute of his next three years before his 40 Year-Old Virgin heat dissipates, sign him up for the Disney romantic comedy Dan in Real Life. (Plot unimportant.). [Variety]
· In perhaps one of the most liberal contractual definitions of "talent" to date, the WB signs a talent holding deal with Nick Lachey . [THR]
· Robert Wise, Academy Award winning director of The Sound of Music and West Side Story died of heart failure yesterday at 91. Pray that his soul was not captured inside Britney's baby after it shuffled off its mortal coil. [Variety]
· Disney's underperforming film business could flush up to $300 million down the fiscal crapper this quarter after a horrible summer. We blame Lindsay Lohan's missed days of shooting on Herbie: Fully Loaded for at least half of the loss. [Variety]
· Fox's Head Cases premiere bombs even in comparison to lead-in So You Think You Can Dance's weak numbers. Chris O'Donnell should be taking your drink order shortly. [THR]

· After snatching away Thank You For Smoking from Paramount Classics and beating out Miramax for Trust the Man, Fox Searchlight has made the Toronto film festival its bitch. [Variety]
· The season premiere of Fox's House was Wednesday night's most-watched show. New series Bones also did well with the support of its breakout star, Emily Deschanel's outstanding rack. [THR]
· The paint is barely dry on Hong Kong Disneyland and the Mouse is already talking about opening another theme park next door. We know what you're thinking, Mr. Naysayer, but Hong Kong Adventure is totally gonna rock! [Variety]
· MTV plans to launch an HD channel in January to carry music-related content from its other channels—which they will then discontinue so that viewers can watch Real World cast members vomit on the sidewalk in front of a bar in thrilling high-definition. [THR]
· Warner Bros. chooses Constantine director-with-two-first-names Francis Lawrence to direct the now-fastracked I Am Legend, a property first put into development in 1799 and once involving the teams of Ridley Scott/Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bay/Will Smith. Once a cast is set, Warner Bros. can safely delay the project indefinitely, giving a new generation of talent a chance to never make the movie. [Variety]

· In addition to the seemingly endless (but helpful) parade of telethons and corporate matching gift programs for hurricane relief, Hollywood is getting "creative" in its charitable efforts to ease people's pain, such as building and/or refurbishing a variety of structures to house the displaced. The entertainment industry: not always as evil as it's cracked up to be. [Variety]
· Emma Roberts, daughter-of-Eric-and-niece-of-Julia, kicks off in earnest a life of explaining that her acting career has nothing to do with her bloodlines by being cast as the big-screen Nancy Drew. Potentially making matters worse is that Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills will be set in the "fast-living, self-indulgent world of Hollywood." [THR]
· HBO picks up Rome for a second 12 episode season, but in true HBO fashion, the series won't air again until 2007. That's a long time until we get to see Polly Walker getting freaky two or three times an episode. But we'll wait. [Variety]
· Fox Searchlight picks up Bart "Mr. Julianne Moore" Freundlich's Trust the Man for $6 to $7 million at Toronto, seemingly without being threatened with "handshake court" by Paramount Classics. [THR]
· Universal and Mountain Dew Films will partner on the snowboarding documentary First Descent. Someone please burn down Hollywood before Paramount hooks up with Fanta. [Variety]

· Chilling factoid of the day, from a story about Rupert Murdoch's recent binge of internet-related acquisitions: "If MySpace and IGN were integrated today, News Corp. would be the fifth most trafficked network on the Web." Welcome to the RupeNet. [Variety]
· The NFL does its best water polo player impression by stomping on Seth Cohen and propelling ABC to a Thursday night ratings win. [THR]
· ABC will dub or subtitle its entire primetime lineup in Spanish, firm in the belief that no language barrier should prevent potential audiences from overrating Desperate Housewives or missing a single hilarious word uttered by Freddie Prinze Jr. [Variety]
· Comedy Central does what it can to cope with the uncertain, post-Chappelle's Show era, ordering another three seasons (42 episodes) of South Park, and hoping that Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't going to disappear to Bolivia to chill out with a big bag of their cash. [THR]
· Tonight's multinetwork Katrina telethon won't edit out political remarks, just profanity. Acceptable: "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Unacceptable: "George Bush doesn't fucking care about black people." [THR]

· Universal and Paramount's international distribution split is amicable, but now they've got to figure out how to divide up custody of their favorite fifteen children (foreign markets). Yeah, we're getting tired of the divorce metaphor too, but it's pretty hard to get psyched about international distribution entities. [Variety]
· Rupert Murdoch continues to base his internet acquisitions on the advice of his 16 year-old nephew, as News Corp. follows up its recent MySpace purchase with a $650 million buy of videogame-related company IGN Entertainment. Hey, Rupe, stay the hell away from Gawker Media. Nick Denton doesn't give us any stock options. [THR]
· Natural disaster and untold suffering prove huge for the networks, as Hurricane Katrina coverage results in some nice Nielsen numbers. If only there were a way to flood a major city every summer... [Variety]
· Hilary Swank hires producer Mark Burton to help run her and househusband Chad Lowe's production company, Accomplice Films, and to make sure Lowe doesn't eat too many cookies while she's out working. [THR]
· The Weinstein Co. hires "colorful kung-fu specialist" Bey Logan to oversee its Asian acquisitions and co-production operations, assisting the Brothers Weinstein in more efficiently plundering the cinematic booty of the Far East. [Variety]

You know what, Daily News? FUCK YOU. Seriously. We're in the middle of dark times right now — natural disasters, bumblefuck leaders, NYC in the throes of EDGY — and, to be honest, we've very little to look forward to this fall. But we're total 'tards, and so we've had one beacon of joy lately, and that's tonight's return of Fox's soap-opera-on-crack, The O.C.

· After 24 beautiful years of blissful marriage as co-owners of international distribution unit United International Pictures, Universal and Paramount announce their divorce, opting to finally follow their own overseas paths. Yes, we're as emotional and broken up about this as you are, and we'll never believe in love again. [Variety]
· Breakout Project Greenlight star Andrew Rona (come on, you remember him—the Dimension exec who dished out so much tough love to Gulager and company?) has been named president of production at Focus Features' genre label Rogue Pictures. [THR]
· Billionaire Rupert Murdoch turns to a pal, a billionaire Saudi prince, to help him stave off a possible hostile takeover bid of News Corp. It's so heartwarming when you can count on your friends to help you keep control over your multimedia conglomerate. [Variety]
· Big Brother beats even hurricane coverage in the Tuesday ratings, once again demonstrating people's seemingly unquenchable thirst for televised misery. [THR]
· Judy Davis signs on for Lifetime's latest tearjerker, Dead End, the three-hanky story of a mother-son serial killer team. We can only assume that the killer mom also struggled with bulimia. [Variety]

In the grand tradition Dancing with the Stars, where people you sort of recognize were asked to perform acts of physical grace for which they were particularly ill-suited, Fox will soon present Skating with Celebrities, in which a similar caliber of has-been will be placed precariously atop metal blades and sent crashing repeatedly to the chilly surface of an ice rink. It sounds like Fox is hoping to convert those spectacular accidents to ratings points; think NASCAR, but with Willis, not an automobile covered in Pennzoil ads, spinning out of control into the stands and killing a handful of spectators. From the AP:

· Hurricane Katrina causes the evacuation of the productions of Michael Keaton's The Last Time, Lucy Lawless's The Vampire Bats, and, perhaps most disappointingly, Road House 2. Don't miss the "Stars Flee Hurricane Katrina" graphic on the Variety homepage. [Variety]
· "With possibly hundreds dead, many injured and millions displaced — including most of New Orleans, which was underwater — reporters found themselves covering a story that got bigger as daylight rose on what looked on television like a scene from a Hollywood disaster movie." Do we really need the Hollywood point of reference when we can see the actual tragedy on TV, not recreated on sound stages? [THR]
· Jim Carrey is in talks to costar with Ben Stiller in Fox comedy Used Guys, about two obsolete "pleasure clones" who are "rendered obsolete by superior models whose enhancements include better listening and lovemaking skills." [Variety]
· Producers continue to flounder trying to fill James Bond's empty tuxedo, with Casino Royale's start date looming in January. They're hilariously picky about who gets to replace to the too-pricey Pierce Brosnan—Broadway-loving Hugh Jackman isn't "masucline enough," Ewan McGregor is "too short," Eric Bana's not "good-looking enough," and we think we all know about what's wrong with Colin Farrell. [THR]
· Need something to take your mind off of the hurricane coverage? How about a story on the Venice Film Festival being on high-alert for potential terrorist attacks? [Variety]

· Gone are the days when Oscar winners were too afraid to drive their Bentleys through the dangerous ghettos of episodic television, as Charlize Theron will cruise through the rapidly gentrified neighborhood of Arrested Development for a five episode arc as a potential love interest for Jason Bateman's character. The days of lazy extended metaphors, however, are still with us. [Variety]
· Million Dollar Baby and Crash scribe Paul Haggis's heavy-handed gifts are sought out by Sony/MGM, who've signed him on for a rewrite of the James Bond pic Casino Royale. Can't wait for his version of that iconic line, "Bond. James Bond. James, like the king, and B-O-N-D—oh, shall I just write it down for you?" [THR]
· Producer Saul Zaentz, original Lord of the Rings rights-holder, reportedly squeezes another $20 million out of New Line in settling a lawsuit over the LOTR trilogy's royalties. [Variety]
· Cheri Oteri joins the cast of thousands of Richard "Donnie Darko" Kelly's Southland Tales as a "villainous lesbian bodybuilder." Strangely, we've always pictured her this way. [THR]
· Universal signs up The 40 Year-Old Virgin's Judd Apatow to write and direct another "offbeat romantic comedy," which will star longtime (Freaks and Geeks/Undeclared) muse Seth Rogen and semi-muses Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. We have to admit, a Seth Rogen vehicle sounds kind of awesome. [Variety]

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, All-Worlds Edition: Paramount brings in Steven Spielberg, the world's leading expert on expensive remakes with "Worlds" in the title and movies dealing with deadly threats from outer space, as producer of the re-do of 1951's When Worlds Collide. [Variety]
· The world's leading expert on bad movies involving CGI critters and ancient curses, Stephen "The Mummy" Sommers, steps out of the above-mentioned When Worlds Collide project to take over Fox's Night at the Museum, about "a goodhearted but bumbling security guard at the Museum of Natural History who accidentally trips an ancient curse that causes the animals and insects on display to come to life, wreaking havoc in the area." [THR]
· Scott Rudin, Hollywood's unofficial Friend of Literature, puts up his own money [Ed.note—Gasp!] to acquire the rights to soon-to-be-released Benjamin Kunkel (for blog-lit nerds: he's the N+1 guy, there is hope!) novel Indecision. [Variety]
· HBO orders comedy pilot from Lydia Dean Pilcher, about thirty-something Manhattan women juggling their families and careers, but otherwise bears no resemblance whatsoever to Sex and the City. [THR]
· The Island continues to become somewhat less of a disaster overseas, winning a third straight weekend at the foreign box office and crossing the $100 million mark. [Variety]

· Steve Carell Is The New Poker, Part 2: Carell's Bruce Almighty character will take the lead in the sequel Evan Almighty, in which he embarks on a (hilarious!) quest to build an ark. Additionally, Carell may earn ten times his $500,000 40 Year-Old Virgin payday, making him the first actor to earn five trillion dollars for a single film. [Variety]
· Fox picks up Ivan Reitman's half hour comedy script That Guy, about a 35 year-old who decides to start living like he's 21 again. Or, in other words, like he's living a completely unremarkable life in Hollywood. [THR]
· Sensing an opportunity to get more than 15 people to take interest in one of their shows, UPN launches the biggest promo campaign in its history to make sure that each and every person in America is aware of Everybody Hates Chris. [Variety]
· Hurricane Katrina proves terribly inconvenient for various pre-VMA bacchanalia. Damn, you, Mother Nature, Carson Daly needs to get his schwerve on! [THR]
· The Weinsteins decide that "The Twins of Tribeca" sounds better than "The Psychos of SoHo," decide to stay put in their old neighborhood. [Variety]