From the online swap meet:

Whether or not you believe that the studios are making less money at the box office this year, there is hardly anything more entertaining than a reporter (this time, it's Sharon Waxman of the NY Times) using The Slump to corner some high-powered film executives and make them admit that many of their movies are, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty shitty:

"'A raper and a pillager?' Rifkin whispers. 'When I started out in 1974, nobody showed me how to be an agent. I had no mentor. No writers knocked on my door and gave me scripts. No actors begged me to represent them. I support a wife and two children. If I'm a raper and pillager, whom have I hurt? I think I made a lot of people a lot of money.'" Writer Ross Johnson raises a 10-year-old unpublished story from the dead (also available at Movie City News), in which he tried to finally put an end to the ubiquitous agent blowjob piece. The "colorful" quotes from the tenpercenters of a different era make it feel like you're at a cocktail party full of deeply unpleasant people, but without having to move away from your computer.
· Best News Ever: The original Paradise Hotel, perhaps the greatest reality show ever to grace a television network, is revived tonight on Fox Reality Channel. We're not sure all of the wounds caused by Charla's treachery have fully healed.
· This little anecdote involving Jennifer Lopez's flatulence and bad tipping is almost certainly not true, but you know what? It's hilarious, even as anti-fan fiction.
· Movies with transporation-related titles make the lives of lazy headline writers so much easier.
· Congratulations to the masterful publicity department at ThinkFilm (they also have The Aristocrats), who've managed to place a gossip item involving a three-way with Kevin Bacon and the chick from 7th Heaven to sneakily promote their movie Where the Truth Lies. Very, very nicely played.

· Ben Affleck is in "talks" to write and produce the TV drama Resistance for Touchstone, apparently hedging his bets in case this acting stuff doesn't pan out. [Variety]
· Shockingly, Fox's probe into American Idol judge Paula Abdul's alleged conflict-causing coaching/boinking of former contestant Corey Clark turns up no wrongdoing, but the network plans to crack down on future judge-pitchy singer fraternization by affixing alarms to the genitals of all AI staff. [THR]
· The Island attempts to become something of a smaller disaster through the foreign box office, beating out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this weekend. [Variety]
· As the clock approaches midnight on December 31st and Ryan Seacrest hugs New Year's Rockin' Eve co-host Dick Clark a little too tightly, microphones will probably not pick up Seacrest's whispered New Year's wishes to his mentor, "I thought I got rid of you for good last year, but this time I've burned that picture in your attic, old man. You'll be dead before the ball's finished dropping." [THR]
· V does execu shuffle, longtime staffer becomes ed, Bart remains chief. Eh, can we really bring ourselves to care? [Variety]
· Despite being fired off the Brooke Shields MOW, Johnny Drama's quote proves too costly for producers, who opt for Karl Urban to play the lead in Viking remake Pathfinder. [THR]

· Var: "Rupert Murdoch is really into the internet." Totally! Now that he's acquired MySpace, Murdoch is looking to continue moving boldly into the internet space. May we recommend an immediate purchase of StuffOnMyCat.com? [Variety]
· Production company Roaring Entertainment is suing ABC, Simon Cowell, and Freemantle Media claiming that their Million Dollar Idea was stolen. Actually, it should be a "tens of millions of dollars idea," since that's what the lawsuit is seeking in damages. [THR]
· Hey Dreamworks SpielbergKatzenbergGeffen, in your face! Sort-of stand-alone studio (did they have to mention that News Corp owns a chunk?) Regency Enterprises is thriving while you're hawking your wares to NBC Universal. [Variety]
· The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences gives ABC president Steve McPherson its inaugural "televisionary" award for his work to "advance the cause of diversity in the industry." We hope he doesn't bring Jim Belushi to the awards ceremony. No one wants an "incident." [THR]
· It's nice to see that Herbie: Fully Loaded director Angela Robinson wasn't so scarred by her experience with Linday Lohan that she quit the business. The Lohan-survivor will co-write and direct chick-becomes-cyborg action comedy Genbot for New Line. [Variety]
· There is much rejoicing at the Bing: HBO may tack on an additional 10 episodes to the end of The Sopranos' upcoming, final season. [THR

· Fox News head Roger Ailes is the most likely candidate for "The Son Rupert Murdoch Never Had," and might replace dead-to-him-now offspring Lachlan as chairman of Fox Television Stations Group. They're going to look a little funny running the three-legged race at the News Corp father-son picnic, but Lachlan was always a liability anyway. [Variety]
· Also, Lachlan Murdoch's golden parachute will likely be in the millions of dollars, and his two-year noncompete clause will leave him with little to do but build money-castles on an Australian beach. [THR]
· That harmless little joke that Sony played on the world, where they invented a movie critic to provide glowing pullquotes for their movies, costs them $1.5 million in a settlement with fans. At that piddling price, it was totally worth it! [Variety]
· Paramount snaps up the film rights to writer AJ Jacobs's yet-to-be-published nonfiction book, The Year of Living Biblically, in which the author spends a year trying to abide by all of the Bible's dictates. Wacky, unwatchable spiritual sequel to 40 Days and 40 Nights to follow. Do we have to pitch it? "When Andy is caught cheating on his very religious fiance, he offers to prove his love by obeying every rule in the Bible up until their wedding day." We decline to dreamcast Ashton Kutcher at this time. [THR]
· Hollywood Est Hors des Idées: Warner Brothers will remake the French waiter-and-hilarious-consequences-of-averted-suicide comedy Apres Vous with Billy Crystal as the star. [Variety]

· Lachlan Murdoch resigns from daddy Rupert's News Corp., where he was expected to one day assume his father's multimedia conglomerate throne. Will Viacom's Sumner Redstone sense an opening an offer to adopt young Lachlan to secure a male heir? Eh, probably not, but how awesome would that be? [Variety]
· Bored with directing talented actors on to Oscar-winning performances, Clint Eastwood adds Paul "Hey, why would I WANT to act my way out of wet paper bag, smart guy?" Walker to his World War II epic Flags of our Fathers. [THR]
· Variety looks at the fading of the DreamWorks "dream," now that they might shift from being the "new," independent kind of studio to the "old" kind that's bought up by a company with a lot more money, like NBC Universal. [Variety]
· The WGA launches a Showrunner Trainer Program to help TV writers acquire the skills to run a successful TV show. By the third day of training, inexperienced writers will be able to smile sincerely through network notes like, "We love the Chinese grandfather character, love him, but couldn't he be a twentysomething ad executive living in a Tribeca loft?" [THR]
· The threat of Desperate Housewives has NBC and the Foreign Press Association scattering like roaches under a spotlight, as they mull moving the Golden Globes from Sunday to Monday night. [Variety]

· We are very, very afraid: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment is joining up with evil Fox reality TV presence Mike Darnell to produce X Quest, in which "ordinary folks" (i.e., struggling actors) are locked into incredibly expensive space simulators. The simulators will be so realistic (i.e. did we mention incredibly expensive?) that "every button, display and videoscreen actually serv[es] a purpose. Press the wrong button and bad things may happen." Example: 30-year old model/bartender Bryce mistakenly presses the "airlock release," and viewers in the 18-49 demo all over America immediately tune out. If the show doesn't debut to huge numbers, look for the network to cut costs by relocating the show to the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. [Variety]
·For Ridley Scott's next project, A Good Year, "Russell Crowe is going from the boxing ring to the vineyards of France," where he will proceed to hurl empty bottles at uppity wine-tasting stewards for their insolence. (Hey, when are we going to let that go? Answer: Not yet.) [THR]
· ABC commemorates the American lives lost in the World Trade Center attacks by shooting their 9/11 commission report miniseries in Toronto. [Variety]
· With audiences finally realizing that the bad dancers of So You Think You Can Dance weren't going to sing off-key. the show's ratings drop in its second week. [THR]
· Intensive focus-group testing discovers that 15-year-old boys love both comic books and vampires, prompting MTV Films to buy the film rights to the Dark Horse vampire comic Damn Nation. [Variety]

Well let the spy from the Fox lot who sent in this picture explain exactly what you're looking at: "Seriously, one of the lamest things I have ever seen. As promotion for the upcoming release of Roll & Bounce, the roller boogie movie, some dumb exec had rollerbouncers burnin' up the commissary pavement at FOX today. I lost my lunch."

According to the Illinois Daily Herald, one family is finding out that camera-friendly Hollywood set building techniques might not hold up to real-world use, and suing Fox because their Renovate My Family makeover didn't exactly make their home more handicapped-friendly for their recently paralyzed son:

· Assuming that Ron Howard's nurturing embrace on The Da Vinci Code doesn't ruin all other directors for Tom Hanks, the actor will star in Charlie Wilson's War, the story of the "rogue" Texas congressman, for Universal. [Variety]
· Christian Bale and Steve Zahn will star in director Werner Herzog's "action drama" Rescue Dawn. Actually, doesn't Zahn's presence immediately reclassify the project as a "failed buddy comedy"? [THR]
· A hidden sex scene earns Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas the video-game equivalent of the NC-17 rating, causing many retailers to discontinue selling it and many bored teens to use it to replace Maxim as their preferred masturbation material. [Variety]
· So You Think You Can Dance (think American Idol with dancing and even more effeminate, obviously closeted male contestants) has a strong debut, winning Wednesday night for Fox. [THR]
· "Rampant" availability of pirate DVDs at Comic-Con may lead the MPAA to commence a violent geek-purge at the convention. The streets of San Diego shall run green with spilled Vulcan blood! [Variety]

Not to panic anyone in Century City or in the Fox "Nakitomi" Tower, but a reader tells us about a possible bomb threat at the Plaza:

On Monday, Rupert Murdoch dispatched his minions to sweep down and acquire MySpace, extending the reach of his worldwide media empire into the computers of 18 million potential Fantastic Four ticket buyers and demographically desirable The O.C. viewers. We could speculate about how the conglomerate is going to utilize the power of a social networking site as a new advertising platform for its various entertainment products, but we've been so excited waiting for Rupe to miraculously appear in our Friend Space that we're spending our time preparing a welcoming Friend Comment instead. Here's what we have so far: "This guy is one crazy mofo! LOL! We were doing tequila shots on the beach in Sydney when he waded into the water and bit a fukkin shark! Then he was all, 'Take that, you toothy poofter, I am king of the goddamn ocean!' RUPE IS THE BADDEST! Newz Korp 4-eva!" We think he's really going to like it.

· CD sales are down almost 7% from last year, while downloading (the legal kind) is up 104 million units. In response to the new Nielsen SoundScan numbers, RIAA lawyers are busy trying to figure out how to sue everyone who's ever bought a song on iTunes. [Variety]
· Fox News was the first American TV outlet to air reports of the London terrorist attacks; the network was also the first to tie the subway bombings to Democrat-friendly terrorists. [THR]
· Disney partners with Sprint to create a family-targeted cellphone service. Soon, every five-year old will own a Mickey-shaped mobile phone and talk into the place where the mouse's genitals should be. [Variety]
· Nothing says World War II like Mr. Reese Witherspoon and the guy from Bring It On: Ryan Phillippe and Jesse Bradford are set to star in Clint Eastwood's next project, Flags of Our Fathers. [Variety]
· 18 million people tuned in to watch MTV and VH1 veejays mindlessly babble over the historic performances of the Live 8 concerts. No one wanted to hear the Pink Floyd reunion drown out that TRL guy, anyway. [THR]
· And because every world-shaking story has a show business angle, the entertainment industry in London is shut down in the wake of the terrorist attacks. [Variety]

· The Supreme Court bitch-slaps Grokster and file-sharing services back down to a lower court, ruling that the companies can be held liable for their users' acts of copyright infringement. Stay tuned for the press release in which MPAA pirate hunter emeritus Jack Valenti compares file-swapping to the trading of molested children on the Russian black market. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas XXXIV: The New Paramount relapses into its remaking ways, planning a new version of 1973's Donald-Sutherland-humping-Julie-Christie classic Don't Look Now. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas XXXV: Warner Bros. and Jennifer Garner to remake the 2004 Japanese hit Be With You. You know, after she pawns the baby off on stay-at-home partner Ben Affleck. [Variety]
· Well, at least it's not a remake: Fox plans to bring video game Max Payne to your local multiplex. [THR]
· Tomorrow's snubs today: Paul Giamatti's soon-to-be acclaimed voice-work in the animated Amazing Screw-On Head to go criminally overlooked. [Variety]

· The WGA goes on the "warpath" to unionize reality TV writers, editors, and producers. The producers call the Guild's aggressive tactics "most unfortunate and unproductive, and even self-destructive." Let the rhetoric escalate, but please make sure that in the end, the people responsible for Dancing with the Stars are severely punished. [Variety]
· Movie theater giants AMC and Loews plan a merger, driving popcorn prices to $50 a bucket and prompting studios to consider bombing their multiplexes. [THR]
· Fox and Marvel sue over Sony and Revolution's Zoom, claiming that the Tim Allen comedy is "confusingly similar" to the X-Men franchise. A modest proposal to avoid the ugliness of litigation: Fox "reluctantly agrees" to send X3 director Brett Ratner to shepherd the rival production to success. [Variety]
· Adelphia founder/robber baron James Rigas is sentenced to 15 years in prison (and his son to 20) on bank fraud and conspiracy charges. We hate to make this all about us, but is our cable (or, God forbid, our internet access) going to go black? [THR]
· Producers Karen and Howard Baldwin obtain the rights to Rodney Dangerfield's life story from his widow and plan to develop a biopic. But get ready for a bummer: "...while he was making everyone forget their troubles by laughing at his, Rodney's own life was a heavy-hearted one." [Variety]

· Tom Hanks' Playtone and Universal open wide for the rights to Deep Throat's life story—more fellatio puns TK as the development process, um, goes down? [Variety]
· Luke "Brother of the Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson is in talks to star in Ivan Reitman's Super Ex for Regency, about a man who breaks up with a superhero. Jokes about her "super PMS" will certainly be every bit as hilarious as we dare to hope. [THR]
· The new Coldplay album moves 737,000 copies in its first week, and the record industry is so happy it momentarily forgets to claim that they would've sold 4.3 billion more if not for file-sharing scofflaws. [Variety]
· Today, stuntpeople will repeatedly throw themselves down the Academy's front steps to demonstrate why they deserve an Oscar category. [THR]
· George Lucas tells network execs it's time to begin killing each other over the rights to broadcast the Star Wars franchise on television. Incredible bloodletting to immediately follow. [Variety]

· Batman Begins opens today and will expand to 3,858 locations by Friday, an onslaught that Warner Bros. hopes can overcome some of the damage that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise have done to its promotion. [Variety]
· The post-acquittal sleepover parties at the Ranch haven't even ended, and already the Jackson family is shopping a reality show. However, the famed bedroom will be closed to any camera operators over the age of 13. [THR]
· Vin Diesel is attached to star in Fox's adaptation of the videogame Hitman. Our sources reveal that Diesel's The Pacifier co-star Gary the Duck was approached about the role first, but declined because he's "too big for that Xbox shit." [Variety]
· Dancing with the Stars was the week's most-watched show, proving that ideas that seem like bad Mad TV parodies of reality television can be viable hits. [THR]
· Disney wants to cast the new, do-anything-for-a-buck version of Robert DeNiro as the husband of Meryl Streep's female president in Disney's descriptively-titled First Man. [Variety]

· Clive Owen is finalizing the details to star in Shoot-Em-Up for New Line, an "ultraviolent" flick with scenes that include "a shootout during a sex scene and another in the midst of a freefall." We don't want to fall prey to the hype machine, but this may turn out to be the greatest movie ever made. [Variety]
· Director James Cameron seems torn about which 3D project to pay attention to, reportedly moving his focus from next announced project Battle Angel to mysterious, "parallel" Project 880. Also, it's been a long time, so refresh our memory—is Cameron the Titanic guy or the Cutthroat Island guy? [THR]
· Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz chooses a showrunning deal for future AD seasons over a potentially more lucrative development deal, opting to be yanked around on a single, continuing project instead of a bunch of new ones. [Variety]
· Despite news specials exploring yesterday's Jackson-related Armageddon, Fox's Hell's Kitchen still pulls good ratings. [THR]
· War of the Worlds is premiering all over the world, where canny translators provided by the studio may be able to mitigate some of the damage Cruise may do on international red carpets. [Variety]

· Mr. and Mrs. Smith brings in $32 million in foreign box office, raising its weekend take to $83 million. Fox distribution head Bruce Snyder shows a flair for understatement concerning Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's tabloid ubiquity: "It certainly didn't hurt." [Variety]
· The Supreme Court lets stand a lower-court ruling that prevents multimedia conglomerates from gobbling up too many media outlets in a single market, temporarily putting off further media consolidation until someone can buy off a couple of Justices. [THR]
· Fox coincidentally fast-tracks the reality show Skating with Celebrities, which bears absolutely no similarity to the uncoordinated-celebrities-humiliating-themselves ABC hit series Dancing with the Stars. [Variety]
· Tobey Maguire is in negotiations to star in and produce the romantic comedy Quiet Type for New Line, the story of "an unassuming mute from a small town who moves to New York to pursue his dreams of conducting an orchestra." Also, the mute may or may not have a weight problem, depending on whether or not Maguire feels like working out prior to production. [THR]
· The Weinsteins continue to stay too busy to name their new company, but will distribute the puntastically titled Bruce Willis gangster thriller Lucky Number Slevin. [Variety]